UXBRIDGE, Canada
Another week of
international climate negotiations ended in Bonn, Germany last Friday, but there was little mid-level bureaucrats could do when world leaders remain in thrall to the fossil fuel industry, say environmentalists.
Nearly 70 percent of known reserves of oil, gas and coal must remain in the ground to avoid dangerous climate change. So why did the energy industry spend 674 billion dollars in 2012 looking for more?
Nearly a dozen U.S. cities have announced their interest in withdrawing municipal investments from fossil fuel companies, joining a fast-growing movement among colleges and universities that supporters say is allowing citizens concerned with environmental degradation and global climate change to act in lieu of federal action from the U.S. Congress.
Advocacy groups here are applauding the publication of new government concerns, formally expressed Monday by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), over a recent assessment of the environmental impact of a major oil pipeline that would run between Canada and the U.S. Gulf Coast.
Two new reports, put out by a cross-section of U.S. environmental and public interest groups, are attacking central rationales for the construction of a major new Canada-U.S. oil pipeline proposal, which has emerged as an emblematic cause for green groups who have angrily denounced a U.S. government approvals process.
“Be a climate-protection hero, not a climate victim” is the message energy experts from around the world are bringing to San Francisco Tuesday.
Is sustainability still possible? Yes. Is it still probable? No. With bold action today, tomorrow, and in years to come, we could succeed in creating a sustainable and prosperous society. But what does bold action actually mean?
Nascent carbon emissions-trading exchanges in several countries are increasingly looking at options to interlink with one another, which advocates say would offer investors long-term stability, increase revenues for the development of renewable energy and strengthen corporate support for climate policy.
After another winter of erratic and disappointing snowfall, 75 of the U.S.’s top professional winter athletes are calling on President Barack Obama to take stronger measures to curb climate change.
When Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon visited Kiribati in 2011, he had "an unexpected insight" into the fear that stalks the Pacific Island nation.
A confluence of factors could make 2013 the most fruitful opportunity in years – and for years – for potentially major action on climate change, according to a leading voice on climate change policy, the British economist Nicholas Stern.
Environmentalists and public health advocates are lauding a key, long-awaited proposal put forward by President Barack Obama’s administration that would require cleaner gasoline and more effective technologies on vehicles, cutting various harmful emissions by 40 to 80 percent.
Freeing America from its dependence on oil from unstable parts of the world is an admirable goal, but many of the proposed solutions - including the push for more home-grown biofuels and for the construction of the new Keystone XL pipeline to transport Canadian tar sands oil to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast - are harmful and simply unnecessary.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is urging national governments around the world to roll back or eliminate subsidies on petroleum-based energy sources, estimating that this alone could result in a 13-percent decline in global carbon dioxide emissions.
President Barack Obama on Friday unveiled a broad new proposal to step up U.S. research into renewable energy technologies, particularly in transportation, which is responsible for around 70 percent of the United States’ oil use.
IPS on Facebook