The IEA has issued an FAQ to try to answer some persistent questions and criticisms about their annual World Energy Outlooks (WEO). How come the growth of solar and wind have been consistently underestimated? When is “peak oil” going to happen? Will the IEA’s Sustainable Development Scenario limit the global temperature rise to 1.5 °C this century? Is it realistic? Why has a “Net Zero Emissions by 2050” (NZE2050) pathway been added this year? Do … [Read more...]
China’s new net zero emissions target for 2060: why now, and how?
China’s promise of peak emissions before 2030 and net zero by 2060 is a major and welcome step for the economic (and fossil fuel) powerhouse. Better still, the rest of the world doesn’t need to make concessions to get China to stick to the new target, says John Seaman at the IFRI Centre for Energy & Climate. That’s because an energy transition is in China’s interests. It wants and needs to be at the forefront of new energy technologies to … [Read more...]
Changes to national targets and forestry mean EC’s 55% plan is weaker than it looks
The EC’s plan to reduce the bloc’s emissions by 55% by 2030 compared to 1990 levels, instead of the previously agreed 40%, is very welcome but its implementation plan is flawed, says William Todts at Transport & Environment. The EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) won’t be enough on its own. So the plan allows nations to include “managing” forests and “tree plantations”, a big change because forests were not part of previous emissions … [Read more...]
Europe’s 55% emissions cut by 2030: proposed target means even faster coal exit
The EC is proposing a target emissions reduction of 55% by 2030 compared to 1990 levels, instead of the previously agreed 40% (which the EU is on course to surpass). The main tool for achieving it will be the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS). Prices for allowances will rise, making coal increasingly uncompetitive. Sören Amelang, Kerstine Appunn and Julian Wettengel at CLEW talked to a number of experts who say the new target implies a near total … [Read more...]
Tesla’s BEVs vs. Toyota’s hybrids: the battle for the future of low emission cars
Which car firm will dominate the future? Tesla and its BEVs or Toyota with its hybrids? Schalk Cloete looks at the cost reductions coming down the line. He says that the hybrids have many more improvements on the way, whereas in terms of performance and efficiency the BEVs are already reaching their peak. Though further and considerable progress in battery technology is coming, it will benefit both. For city driving both will rely on battery … [Read more...]
Net Zero by 2050 technically and economically achievable, says Energy Transitions Commission report
Making Mission Possible, the latest report by the Energy Transitions Commission, describes a net-zero world by mid-century as technically and economically possible. The solutions are already available or close to being brought to market. What is still missing is the will to embrace, rapidly and at scale, the inevitable disruption that will ultimately deliver net-zero emissions, lower air pollution, cheaper energy bills, create new jobs and raise … [Read more...]
The Energy Charter Treaty needs updating, but remains a valuable tool for the transition
Last Thursday we published this critique of the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT). Created in the 1990s, the ECT was designed to protect cross-border energy investments from political risk. Critics now say it is being used to protect fossil fuel investments in a world committed to phasing them out. Today, Andrei Belyi of energy consulting firm Balesene OU and Adjunct Professor in Energy Law and Policy at the University of Eastern Finland, who was named … [Read more...]
BP Outlook 2020: “peak oil” has already happened
BP’s latest Outlook predicts – for the first time - that oil saw its peak in 2019. In each of BP’s Outlooks, published annually since 2011, they have revised their predictions for the global energy landscape to 2050 as new data comes in. The growth of clean energy and the changing shape of climate policies have seen each successive forecast increase the share of renewables at the expense of fossil fuels. This year even gas has seen its prospects … [Read more...]
Norway’s power markets, storage and CCS plans can make it a decarbonisation hub for Europe
Though still heavily reliant on oil and gas, Norway can claim to be a central piece in Europe’s decarbonisation puzzle, explains Tshin Ilya Chardayre writing for the IFRI Centre for Energy & Climate. Norway’s substantial hydropower infrastructure gives it a reservoir storage capacity that could account for 10% of EU-wide energy storage needs by 2050. That would require international transmission cables and power markets, the development of … [Read more...]
Energy Charter Treaty: reform will only happen when energy ministers get involved
Negotiations are underway for the reform of the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT), an international trade agreement under fire from former Energy Charter executives, members of the European Parliament, and NGOs. Created at the end of the cold war, it was designed to protect cross-border energy investments – in a fossil fuel world – from political risk. Clare Taylor quotes the critics who say it no longer makes sense for the treaty to protect oil and … [Read more...]
City-level emissions reductions: what can successful cities teach us
The EU Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy (EUCoM) requires their member cities to commit to exceeding their national goals. EUCoM is one of the world’s largest subnational climate action networks, with over 1,000 cities and home to 50m people. Writing for Carbon Brief, Angel Hsu, Nihit Goyal and Amy Weinfurter at Yale-NUS College review the data to see how successful they have been. About 40% of the cities show emission reductions that are … [Read more...]
Cooling: up-front costs are the barrier to new solutions that cut energy use by two-thirds
Existing, latest technology could be delivering the world’s current air conditioning needs with just a third of the energy use, say Sneha Sachar at the AEEE (India) and Iain Campbell at RMI. The main barrier is the up-front costs. And that’s for everything from improving the thermal efficiency of buildings to accelerating the deployment of the most efficient cutting edge ACs (at present, legal minimums lag behind the best ACs, and the best ACs … [Read more...]
Zero U.S. power sector emissions by 2035, says Biden. How?
Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential hopeful, wants to reduce U.S. power sector emissions to zero by 2035. That’s more ambitious than Obama, and more than what Biden promised when campaigning to be the Democrat’s candidate. His emphasis has been on the jobs and investment a green economy will create – language that has more voter appeal than reversing emissions. Meredith Fowlie at UC Berkeley’s Energy Institute at Haas reviews the promises … [Read more...]
“Electro-swing cell” captures CO2 direct from the air
The problem with capturing carbon from a power plant is that the CCS system is itself huge, expensive, consumes a lot of energy, and only works on exhaust streams with high concentrations of CO2. What’s more, to meet global CO2 targets, total atmospheric CO2 has to be reduced, not just held at today’s concentrations by capturing new emissions alone. Writing for MIT, Nancy Stauffer explains how researchers there are piloting an “electro-swing … [Read more...]
Who will be the Hydrogen superpower? The EU or China
Implicit in the EU’s plans, announced in July, to be the world’s Hydrogen leader is that this technology will have others competing for the top spot too. When EU nations ramped up their solar PV sector in the 2000s they couldn’t survive the arrival and rapid expansion of Chinese production. Will EU Hydrogen meet the same fate? Sören Amelang at CLEW speaks to a wide range of experts to try to answer this vital question from all the relevant … [Read more...]
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14
- 15
- …
- 22
- Next Page »