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Time for a rethink: unveiling the Heinrich Böll Foundation’s European Mobility Atlas
Achieving the goals of the European Green Deal and striking climate neutrality by 2050 means transforming the entire mobility sector, which currently makes up nearly 30 percent of the bloc’s CO2 emissions. To help steer readers in the right direction, the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung’s (hbs) new 2021 European Mobility Atlas provides a host of fact-based recommendations from sector experts. As 2021 is also the European Year...
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Explosive finale: energising EU-UK nuclear relations post-Brexit
When the UK finalized a trade and security agreement with the European Commission on 24 December last year, it left with a set of arrangements governing future energy cooperation. Here, Dr David Lowry looks at the background and reveals one extraordinary condition that could terminate the nuclear component of the deal.
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Copenhagen’s Legendary Wind Park Middelgrunden at a Crossroads
The world’s largest wind farm two decades ago may not survive as a co-operative. At least this is what the Danish energy industry says. The co-op’s founders remain defiant – and optimistic. Paul Hockenos has the story.
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Poland’s Water Policy – The Gordian knot of drought
The report “Water in Agriculture” shows that without fundamental reform, the problems of Polish agriculture, and thus of the entire economy, will only deepen. Michał Olszewski has the details.
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Why are Polish politicians afraid to talk about the climate?
The time to panic is clearly upon us. No more beating around the bush: we must recognise the inevitability of the climate catastrophe. But has everyone noticed it yet? The beginning of 2020 saw the premiere of a documentary by American director Jonathan Ramsey about the Polish atmospheric physicist Szymon Malinowski, who is fighting for the climate. The film’s title announces that It’s okay...
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Shock at oil-gas prospecting plans for Okavango Delta and Kgalagadi
The window of opportunity to keep the average global temperature from breaking through the ceiling of 2°C — or preferably 1.5°C — as set out in the UN’s Paris Agreement is closing fast. But for parts of the Kalahari, a vast semi-desert in southern Africa, the battle to stabilise the regional temperature is already lost. Botswana is expected to reach an average warming of...
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CCS Seduction IV: A new dawn for the oil industry goes Nova
Though increasingly framed as a key way to slow climate change, for most commercial Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) operations, selling the carbon they capture to produce more fossil fuels through Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) production is the only way they can ensure profits for investors. According to a count by the Global CCS Institute, of the 28 currently operable CCS complexes worldwide, 22...
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Seduction Pt III: Carbon Capture’s expensive failure to capture carbon
As many nations develop net-zero carbon plans both to honor the Paris Climate Agreement and address the climate crisis, many are leaning heavily upon unproven and misunderstood Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) technologies. Despite billions of dollars spent in research and development, it’s unclear how much environmental progress is actually achieved by CCS. Not only is there little accurate data around how much carbon...
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Seduced Pt. II: Looking under Carbon Capture & Sequestration’s oily hood
Touted as a key component within many emerging national net-zero emissions strategies, carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) received a huge credibility boost from several recent IPCC and IEA studies. But CCS’ greatest advantage is that it enables oil majors to have a market in an otherwise decarbonized economy. What it doesn’t do is stop the pollution stream. Framed as a climate solution, in fact...
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Just Transition in Greek Lignite Regions: The Clock’s Ticking
In September 2019, at the UN Climate Action Summit in New York, the newly-elected Prime minister Mitsotakis announced that Greece would phase out the use of lignite in its energy system by 2028, 10 years faster than Germany. Consequently, the National Energy and Climate Plan (NECP) drafted by the previous SYRIZA-led government was revised to reflect this and other commitments before the plan was...
This website highlights how energy transitions around the world are moving forward. It shows how they work, and what challenges lie ahead. The e-book on Germany’s Energiewende explains the country’s politics and policies, often regarded as the front runner in the global energy transition.