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Damages dispute between contractor and owners of NSW solar farm at standstill
A dispute between one of Australia's major contractors and the owners of one of the biggest solar farms in NSW is at a standstill.
The post Damages dispute between contractor and owners of NSW solar farm at standstill appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Green, empty promises? The truth behind corporate climate pledges
Facing a reckoning over their contribution to the climate emergency, companies are coming out with a record number of pledges
For climate campaigners, 26 May seemed like the start of a long-awaited reckoning for oil and gas companies.
Over a single 24-hour period, a Dutch court ordered Shell to dramatically cut emissions, shareholders voted to force Chevron to reduce emissions from the products it sells, and a tiny activist investment firm secured three positions on ExxonMobil’s 12-member board for candidates committed to climate action.
Continue reading...Green light: a new series on the critical role of companies in the climate crisis
A new Guardian series explores companies’ accountability for the climate emergency and their efforts to tackle it
Every day the world fails to adequately address the climate emergency, the timeframe needed to drastically cut emissions shrinks and the likelihood of increasingly devastating climate impacts grows. No solution to this crisis will be possible without a wholesale change in the way corporations do business.
Related: Green, empty promises? The truth behind corporate climate pledges
Continue reading...Paul Italiano steps down as head of transmission group Transgrid
Transgrid CEO Paul Italiano announces sudden resignation from the transmission company.
The post Paul Italiano steps down as head of transmission group Transgrid appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Xi Jinping, Bolsonaro, Putin and Morrison: The four leaders resisting global climate action
As countries prepare to return to international negotiations on climate, Australia will find itself lumped in the club of fossil fuelled rogues.
The post Xi Jinping, Bolsonaro, Putin and Morrison: The four leaders resisting global climate action appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Old style tech to give major boost to Australia’s shift to wind and solar
New spinning machines about to join South Australia's grid will allow the maximum output of wind and solar farms to be dramatically lifted.
The post Old style tech to give major boost to Australia’s shift to wind and solar appeared first on RenewEconomy.
China is backing more than half of world’s remaining coal power pipelines
China is looking isolated as the last enabler of global coal-fired power projects.
The post China is backing more than half of world’s remaining coal power pipelines appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Iron air battery backed by Bezos and Gates promises storage at fraction of cost
Form Energy, backed by Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates, unveils more details of long duration battery storage at a fraction of price of current technologies.
The post Iron air battery backed by Bezos and Gates promises storage at fraction of cost appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Climate change: Researchers begin discussions on vital report
The new surgical tool inspired by a wasp
China’s nuclear power firm could be blocked from UK projects
Ministers understood to be exploring ways to exclude state-owned China General Nuclear from involvement in all future UK activity
China’s state-owned nuclear energy company could be blocked from all future power projects in the UK, with ministers understood to be investigating ways to prevent its involvement.
The move would exclude China General Nuclear (CGN) from the consortium planning to build the £20bn Sizewell C nuclear plant on the Suffolk coast, as well as one in Bradwell-on-Sea in Essex.
Continue reading...“No more yeah, buts”: Renewable ad campaign to combat myths and misinformation
Clean Energy Council launches new ad campaign to spur Australians to action, with the message that 'renewables are here now'.
The post “No more yeah, buts”: Renewable ad campaign to combat myths and misinformation appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Climate change: Israel to cut 85% of emissions by mid-century
The Guardian view on restoring the golden age of rail: green glamour | Editorial
The restoration of a Spanish ‘railway cathedral’ reminds us how seductive train travel can be
Earlier this month, a 12-metre-long model train carriage was deposited at Barcelona’s El Prat airport, which the Spanish airports authority controversially plans to expand. “More trains, less planes” was the accompanying message from Greenpeace activists, who intend to take their model on a European tour in the coming months.
As they do so, a celebratory stop-off at the French-Spanish border might be in order. In a village high in the Pyrenees, Europe’s most stunning railway station is to be restored to its former glory, and the line it majestically served reopened. Completed in 1928, Canfranc international station was conceived as a railway “cathedral” as grand as anything that the world’s greatest cities could offer. Overlooked by mountains, the vast edifice is 240 metres in length and has 365 windows and 156 doors, dwarfing London’s St Pancras; but mere numbers cannot convey the sense of grandeur evoked by its architecture and ravishing setting. Intended to combine in one building the French and Spanish border stations, Canfranc is a moving monument to the internationalist spirit and pride in architectural achievement that marked the golden age of rail.
Continue reading...This year, the weather isn’t letting us carry on as normal | Emma Brockes
From New York to Germany and China, the uncanny reality of the climate crisis is impinging on more and more lives
In the depths of winter, at the pandemic’s height, an idea of this summer took hold. It would, we told ourselves, be the summer of outdoors, particularly for children, who had been shut inside on screens for too long. Travelling abroad might be out, but that was fine. If the past year had taught us anything, it was the value of small pleasures, closer to home. On freezing March days, I warmed myself with an image of July and August in Central Park. I would read and commune with nature while camp counsellors forced my kids to spend eight hours a day playing rounders.
As it turns out, this isn’t really happening. We’re almost halfway through the absurdly long school holidays – New York state schools let out in June and don’t go back until 13 September, a closure of almost 11 weeks – and for the first time, our summer schedule is being influenced less by cost, work or babysitting, than by something to which I’ve never given serious consideration: weather.
Continue reading...Large meteor wows Norway after blazing through night sky
Plans of four G20 states are threat to global climate pledge, warn scientists
‘Disastrous’ energy policies of China, Russia, Brazil and Australia could stoke 5C rise in temperatures if adopted by the rest of the world
A key group of leading G20 nations is committed to climate targets that would lead to disastrous global warming, scientists have warned. They say China, Russia, Brazil and Australia all have energy policies associated with 5C rises in atmospheric temperatures, a heating hike that would bring devastation to much of the planet.
The analysis, by the peer-reviewed group Paris Equity Check, raises serious worries about the prospects of key climate agreements being achieved at the Cop26 summit in Glasgow in three months. The conference – rated as one of the most important climate summits ever staged – will attempt to hammer out policies to hold global heating to 1.5C by agreeing on a global policy for ending net emissions of greenhouse gases by 2050.
Continue reading...The cost of cooling: how air conditioning is heating up the world
As temperatures rise, a new book delves into the environmental toll of America’s favorite way to cool off
The widespread reliance on air conditioning in the US is explored in Eric Dean Wilson’s book After Cooling: on Freon, Global Warming, and the Terrible Cost of Comfort. The book explores how air conditioning has become one of the most effective ways to cool off – and explains how harmful chemicals that make our lives comfortable also contribute to the climate crisis.
The modern refrigerant – gas in fridges, freezers and air conditioners – was first introduced in 1930s in the form of a chemical called chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), better known as Freon. This chemical escaped into the air over time, ripping a hole in the ozone layer. In 1987, a global agreement was reached to ban the production of CFCs – although every year an ozone hole reappears over Antarctica in October.
Continue reading...Yep, it’s bleak, says expert who tested 1970s end-of-the-world prediction
A controversial MIT study from 1972 forecast the collapse of civilization – and Gaya Herrington is here to deliver the bad news
At a UN sustainability meeting several years ago, an economic policy officer came up to Gaya Herrington and introduced himself. Taking her name for a riff on James Lovelock’s earth-as-an-organism Gaia hypothesis, he remarked: “Gaya – that’s not a name, it’s responsibility.”
Herrington, a Dutch sustainability researcher and adviser to the Club of Rome, a Swiss thinktank, has made headlines in recent days after she authored a report that appeared to show a controversial 1970s study predicting the collapse of civilization was – apparently – right on time.
Continue reading...Billionaire space cowboys could become heroes by focusing on the climate crisis
Bezos, Musk and Branson have achieved much – but the biggest challenge facing humanity is not the stars, but our planet
For three of the world’s most famous billionaires, space is indeed the final frontier – for their egos. Jeff Bezos, the planet’s richest man, launched into the great beyond last week via his Blue Origin venture, days after Sir Richard Branson did the same on a Virgin Galactic craft. Elon Musk, the sometime world’s richest man, has yet to join his rivals in the heavens with his SpaceX business, but has bought a ticket to ride with Branson at some point.
Space travel is the stuff of legend and these lauded entrepreneurs are clearly caught up in the mythology. Humanity and space have connotations of bravery, and technological and intellectual brilliance, that run through the ages, from Galileo to Gagarin and the moon landings.
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