The UN has declared 2012 the International Year of Sustainable Energy for All. Using his platform as a keynote speaker at the World Future Energy Summit, the project’s global launch which kicked off yesterday in Abu Dhabi, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on governments, the private sector, and civil society to make significant commitments to action in
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Climate Change
One of my very first posts in 2010 was about what I called the triple crisis. As I noted back then “our economies are crumbling, our climate is warming and our energy supplies are getting scarcer.”
You would think that after two years, we would have started to do something about them. Well,
The type of agriculture practiced in a given region depends heavily on the climate and weather that region receives. So naturally, with climate change, agriculture will be forced to change. Certain crops will have to be discarded for alternative crops which may grow better in the new climate. In other cases, agriculture
Bill Moore, editor of EVWorld.com has written a splendid article on the failure of certain of the early electric vehicle companies, in which he points out:
Breaking into the automotive business can be relatively easy; making a success of it is pretty damned near impossible, regardless of what type of
One village in Germany is producing more energy than it needs. Best of all, it’s alternative energy sourced from clean sources.
Wildpoldsried, located in the southern German region known as Bavaria and where 2,600 people live, produces 321 per cent more energy than it
Last week I traveled to Durban, South Africa to participate in the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to highlight the critical and largely untapped potential of women to combat climate change. Studies have shown that it is often women who are on the
Perhaps the largest impact of global climate change will be on agriculture, and there is no crop more sensitive to changes in climate than wine grapes. As temperatures rise and average precipitation levels change, the signature wine-making regions such as those in France and California will be forced to adapt. There have been studies conducted analyzing
As the last days of the year wind down, Congress scurries around to finish its unfinished business, almost always with "surprises" for the regulated community.
The House appropriations committee issued a final version of the 2012 Omnibus spending bill last week. It has, of course, significant implications for energy
Go ahead — call me a hypocrite. I claim to be a cleantech venture capitalist yet I tell you here and now that I am not convinced of anthropogenic (human-caused) climate change (aka global warming). And I will audaciously tell you that my convictions on climate change in no way run contrary to my strong belief in the need for a cleantech revolution.
South Africa, which earlier this month hosted the turbulent climate change conference (COP17) in Durban, has announced it is supporting en.lighten, a global initiative to phase-out inefficient lighting by 2016. South Africa promised to transition
The Australian government will begin imposing a tax on carbon emissions in mid-2012. But large giveaways to industry mean Australia’s scheme doesn’t go nearly far enough in reducing the nation’s CO2 emissions or providing economic stimulus.
Another global climate conference has come and
Electric utilities operated under a rarified business model for decades. Their customers were captive so they rarely had to think about what motivated them to buy. New government energy efficiency mandates have changed that, and done so with an ironic twist. Now utilities must figure how to get their customers to refrain from buying.
For a long time in corporations, sustainability had been a soft issue – nice to highlight in the annual report but not thought to affect the bottom line. Not any more.
Now it’s considered, including by the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC), to have direct impact
Global carbon emissions soared 5.9 percent in 2010, the largest increase ever recorded, according to the Global Carbon Project, an international collaboration of scientists that tracks carbon emissions.
The increase comes after a short-lived decline in emissions in 2008 and 2009 and is a sign that global