Archives
Sweden Closes Last Coal-Fired Power Plant Two Years Ahead of Schedule
Sweden becomes the third European country to exit coal completely after Belgium closed its last coal power station in 2016, and Austria ended its final coal-fired energy operations earlier this month. The plant at Värtaverket, in Hjorthagen in eastern Stockholm is owned by Stockholm Exergi, a company part owned by the City of Stockholm and which […]
UN review says carbon plans fall well short of climate goals
Read the full article online at http://www.bbc.com “A UN review of national plans to cut carbon says they are well short of the levels needed to keep the rise in global temperatures under 2C. The report finds that by 2030 the amount of CO2 entering the atmosphere will be some 25% above that mark. The analysis takes […]
First Electric Road
On Wednesday, Sweden ostentatiously inaugurated a test stretch of the world’s first electric road. Equipped with aerial contact lines from Siemens, the road is expected to supply electric hybrid trucks from Scania with renewable electricity in a costly bid to reach carbon neutrality.
Antarctic CO2 Hit 400 PPM
Carbon dioxide has been steadily rising since the start of the Industrial Revolution, setting a new high year after year. There’s a notable new entry to the record books. The last station on Earth without a 400 parts per million (ppm) reading has reached it.
Bhutan is Carbon Negative
“Bhutan is often overlooked by the international community. The small nation lies deep within the Himalayas between China and India, two of the most populated countries in the world.
But the country of about 750,000 people has set some impressive environmental benchmarks… Bhutan is not merely carbon neutral, it’s also a carbon sink—making it one of the few countries in the world to have negative carbon emissions.”
Record annual increase of carbon dioxide
“The annual growth rate of atmospheric carbon dioxide measured at NOAA’s Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii jumped by 3.05 parts per million during 2015, the largest year-to-year increase in 56 years of research.
In another first, 2015 was the fourth consecutive year that CO2 grew more than 2 ppm, said Pieter Tans, lead scientist of NOAA’s Global Greenhouse Gas Reference Network.
‘Carbon dioxide levels are increasing faster than they have in hundreds of thousands of years,’ Tans said. ‘It’s explosive compared to natural processes.'”
World’s Carbon Budget is Still Too Small
“Climate scientists have bad news for governments, energy companies, motorists, passengers and citizens everywhere in the world: to contain global warming to the limits agreed by 195 nations in Paris last December, they will have to cut fossil fuel combustion at an even faster rate than anybody had predicted.”
Helpful Tips to Reduce Your Carbon Footprint
“There are thousands of little actions you can take to reduce your carbon footprint — but you should consider a few major factors first.
Sustainability experts say, for instance, that changing your diet or the way you get to work can significantly cut the amount of planet-warming emissions released into the atmosphere as a result of your daily life.”
