While it is undeniable that we are ramping up our actions against climate change, it is hard to deny that global warming is getting scarier every week. Here is a quick selection of horror stories I have collected this summer.
Asia
Climate leadership is now in Asia
These days the United States’ federal government is promoting coal and backtracking on climate ambition and the European Union is no longer cutting its greenhouse gases emissions. So, who is leading the fight against climate change ? China, India and South Korea are.
United States, China and Brazil outlined their climate plans
And these are huge steps in the right direction for both renewable energy and afforestation. This bode well for the upcoming IPCC climate talks that will take place late this year in Paris.
World hunger keeps on decreasing
What if we were actually on the right track to solve world hunger ? The UN FAO has published a report recently stating that there are 200 million hungry people less than in 1990, all this while global population increased.
266 gigawatts ! India is going big, enormous, on renewables
While India is plaggued by horrendous air pollution just like neighbouring China, it might not be the case in ten or twenty years from now. We have seen the world’s largest democracy will provide clean electricity to 400 million people thanks to renewables.
Bangladesh now has over three million solar houses
I reported in June 2011 that Bangladesh, one of the world’s poorest countries, had over a million solar roofs. A few years later and these figures have tripled as the country now has 3.1 million residential solar energy systems.
South Korea enacts its cap and trade market
The world’s seventh carbon emitter started earlier this month the second biggest cap and trade program. As we have seen previously, South Korea is willing to cut its emissions by 30 percent by 2020. This cap-and-trade programm will enable it to do so.
A brilliant solar idea from India
We have seen that in Japan, farmers cover some of their crops with solar panels. India covers its rivers with them. The State of Gujarat is thinking of covering its 19,000 kilometers of canals with solar panels.
