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@labocadelglobo
The BBC's Rupert Wingfield-Hayes finds Chinese fisherman destroying coral reefs in the South China Sea and harvesting giant clams.
Really shocking that there is so little dialogue with the Chinese government and that these fishermen are basically protected while they pillage these reefs.
The corporations, which include cruise company Aida, utility company ENBW, and aerospace and construction firm Otto Fuchs, want;
The EU’s 2030 climate and energy goals boosted, including upping efficiency targets from 27% to 40%;
“Comprehensive change” in transport regulation and finance to gain a 95% greenhouse gas cut and encourage more rail and electric vehicles;
A deeper revamp than planned of the EU's Emissions Trading System to create a carbon price that spurs investment and leads to 95% emissions reductions by 2050.
The German giants’ words carry weight, not just because they come from the dominant economic power in the EU, but also because the COP21 deal has been championed as the strong signal the market needed to drive that investment.
The businesses also called on the German government to take action to reduce Germany’s emissions by 80-95% by 2050.
***
When the private sector has to push your politicians in the right direction you know you’ve hit a new low... Let’s hope this spurs some of those jokers into more ambitious action!
In just 15 years, Africa aims to produce twice as much electricity from solar panels, wind farms, geothermal plants and hydropower than it currently generates from all sources combined.
When it comes to electric power, Africa is still a continent in the dark. More than half of its 1.1 billion inhabitants lack access to electricity, and Africa’s total generating capacity, from Cairo to Cape Town, is only 160 gigawatts, or about half as much as Japan, a country with one-tenth of its population.
Against that backdrop, the plan unveiled this week by the African Union and African Development Bank is remarkably ambitious. Officials from the two organizations announced a goal of delivering at least 300 gigawatts—300 billion watts—of electricity-generating capacity to the continent by 2030, all from clean or renewable energy.
East African plant is completed in less than a year – creating jobs and setting the country on the path to providing half its population with electricity by 2017
The plant is also evidence, not only of renewable energy’s increasing affordability, but how nimble it can be. The $23.7m (£15.6m) solar field went from contract signing to construction to connection in just a year, defying sceptics of Africa’s ability to realise projects fast.
The plant’s construction has created 350 local jobs and increased Rwanda’s generation capacity by 6%, powering more than 15,000 homes. All this is crucial in an economy that, 21 years after the genocide, is expanding fast and aims to give half its population access to electricity by 2017.
Bosch-funded start-up company Deepfield Robotics is the latest company to develop a field vehicle that can distinguish weeds from crops.
The technology, named Bonirob, claims that it will make plant breeding more efficient and reduce the environmental impact of crop farming.
Bonirob, which is the size of a small car, can monitor how well new crop varieties grow, whether they are resistant to pests and how much fertiliser and water they need.
It can distinguish between crops and weeds according to the shape of their leaves and then fish out weeds mechanically, rather than with herbicides.
Unwanted plants are, apparently, simply rammed into the ground with a rod.
The water that supplies aquifers and wells that billions of people rely on around the world is mostly a non-renewable resource that could run out, a new Canadian-led study suggests.
"Groundwater is a super-important resource," Gleeson said in an interview with CBC News. "It's used by more than a third of the world's population every day for their drinking water and it's used by agriculture and industry.
"The amount that was renewable was no more than 1.3 million cubic kilometres or less than six per cent. But the researchers said that was likely an overestimate due to the types of rock in the areas where most of the measurements were taken. Correcting for that suggested that the actual amount of groundwater renewable within 50 years was likely only 0.35 million cubic kilometres, or enough to cover all the land on Earth to a depth of just three metres.
Gleeson said in places like California and the U.S. Midwest, people are already using "non-renewable" water that is thousands of years old and in places such as Egypt, they're tapping into water that may have last been renewed a million years ago. Such old water isn't just non-renewable — it tends to be saltier and more contaminated than younger groundwater.
In addition, overusing groundwater, either old or young, can lower subsurface water levels and dry up streams, which could have a huge effect on ecosystems on the surface, Gleeson added.
The European Parliament’s energy committee today (10 November) rejected a push by MEPs to increase the EU’s 2030 climate and energy targets and to make them legally binding.
But the ITRE Committee did approve strong language demanding a role for the Parliament in the oversight of the Energy Union, the EU’s strategy to reduce the bloc’s vulnerability to shortages, and to bolster the fight against climate change.
The amendment – defeated by a single vote, according to Green MEP Claude Turmes – aimed to strengthen commitments made by EU leaders last October.
MEPs today called for three binding 2030 targets of at least 40% greenhouse gas emissions, at least 30% for renewables, and at least 40% for energy efficiency.
Turmes blamed the Socialists for the defeat. Some had voted against the amendment, while others had not turned up to the committee meeting at all, he told EurActiv.
But the Luxembourgish MEP was bullish that the amendment would be passed in a plenary vote of the Parliament in December.
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Talk about being totally inept.
Cross-border monitoring and inspections regime to clamp down on environmental crime worth billions is stymied by fears of UK objections, EU officials say
The legislation would have involved inspections targeting industrial waste, hazardous chemicals, air toxins and groundwater pollution. As the economic crisis bit, many European states cut their environmental budgets and inspection departments to the point where countries such as Belgium only had two officials enforcing inspection rules.
Some say the real problem is that environmental crime in Europe has become too big to deal with. Soil in 2.5m European sites has been contaminated, often by illegal dumping according to commission research. The remediation costs from this are thought to run into trillions.
Another 7.4m tonnes of waste are illegally transported out of the EU each year, often to be dumped in developing countries. Interpol estimates the value of the illegal wildlife and timber trades at between $70bn-$213bn (£46-£140bn) annually.
Officials say that in the current climate, the proposal is unlikely to be revived. “Everything has to be in tune with political priorities of this commission and I don’t think that environmental inspections are among those,” an official said.
Prof John Schellnhuber says that if countries implement their pledges made for Paris climate summit it will give huge boost to wind, tidal and solar power
He said there was reason for optimism about the Paris talks, where at least 80 heads of state are expected. “That is a very telling thing - a sign of hope - because people at the top level do not want to be tainted by failure,” he said.
If a critical mass of big countries implement their pledges, he said in an interview with the Guardian, the move towards a global low-carbon economy would gain unstoppable momentum.
“If some countries really honour their pledges, including China, Brazil, South Africa, US and Europe, I think we will get a dynamic that will transform the development of the century. This is not sheer optimism – it is based on analysis of how incumbent systems implode.”
Obama turns down controversial proposal to build 1,700-mile pipeline through six states, saying ‘it does not serve the national interests’ of the US
BIG WINZ
Waters in the north-west Atlantic have warmed 99% faster than the rest of the world’s oceans in the past decade due to changes in the Gulf Stream and Pacific
“She said it was unlikely that cod catches would recover to pre-crisis levels. The experts laid out scenarios that foresaw a recovery to 5,000 tonnes a year by 2030 in a warm scenario or to just 1,800 tonnes in a hot scenario.“
A great tract of Earth is on fire and threatened species are being driven out of their habitats. This is a crime against humanity and nature
"A great tract of Earth is on fire. It looks as you might imagine hell to be. The air has turned ochre: visibility in some cities has been reduced to 30 metres. Children are being prepared for evacuation in warships; already some have choked to death. Species are going up in smoke at an untold rate. It is almost certainly the greatest environmental disaster of the 21st century – so far.
Fire is raging across the 5,000km length of Indonesia. It is surely, on any objective assessment, more important than anything else taking place today. And it shouldn’t require a columnist, writing in the middle of a newspaper, to say so. It should be on everyone’s front page. It is hard to convey the scale of this inferno, but here’s a comparison that might help: it is currently producing more carbon dioxide than the US economy. And in three weeks the fires have released more CO2 than the annual emissions of Germany."
A mature sperm whale found dead in Taiwan had vast quantities of plastic bags and fishing nets filling its stomach, highlighting marine pollution.
Excerpt:
According to the Association Foreign Press (AFP) news agency, the 15-meter (49-foot) whale was first found stranded near the town of Tongshi on October 15. Coastguards and scientists returned it to the sea, but three days later, the same whale was found dead around 20 kilometers (12 miles) away.
After conducting an autopsy of the whale, local marine biologists reported that there was enough plastic bags and fishing nets found in its stomach to fill an excavator bucket. Professor Wang Chien-ping, head of the whale research center at National Cheng-Kung University, told the AFP that while the whale might have died from many causes, such as heart or lung disease or infections, trash was also a culprit. “The large amount of man-made garbage in the stomach could reduce its appetite and cause malnutrition,” he said. “It was likely a critical cause of death.” About 80 percent of the sperm whale’s diet is giant squid, so this whale might have mistaken plastic bags for food.
SolarCity installed arrays of panels made by inmates who earned just 93 cents an hour.
Not cool, not cool one little bit. Renewable business already showing a dark side. Don’t forget human rights Musk. Let’s learn from this episode okay?
GE and Mirai Co. have converted a former Sony Corporation semiconductor factory in Japan into the world’s largest indoor farm, all illuminated by LEDs.
By controlling temperature, humidity and irrigation, the farm can also cut its water usage to just one percent of the amount needed by conventional outdoor farming. “What we need to do is not just setting up more days and nights. We want to achieve the best combination of photosynthesis during the day and breathing at night by controlling the lighting and the environment,” says Shimamura. The systems allows the farm to grow nutrient-rich lettuce two-and-a-half times faster than an outdoor farm. Wasted produce is also reduced from around 50 percent down to just 10 percent of the crop. This means a 100-fold increase in productivity per square foot. The LEDs also last longer than fluorescent lights and consume 40 percent less power. *** Why is this not being experimented with in every large city?
Compact fuel cell system under the hood frees up more space for passengers and cargo, and can be adapted for future vehicles as well.
Nice example from Apo Island in The Philippines on marine ecosystem sustainability and regeneration.
