You are currently browsing the climateanswers.info Climate Answers articles for August, 2010.
Freiburg has a well-deserved reputation as Germany’s green capital. It uses on about half of the energy that other European cities of 200,000 people do, and has become a world leader in solar. This article looks at what the city council has done to achieve this.
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With around 95% of its electricity generated from coal, Poland comes up higher in coal statistics than Australia, the US, South Africa or even China. The coal intensity of electricity generation in Poland is not only a legacy from the past, but also a conscious choice of consecutive Polish governments. As the most abundant energy resource in the country, coal is considered an important pillar of Poland’s energy security. And yet, despite the central position of coal for the energy sector and the environmental pressure from Brussels, there is little enthusiasm for CCS technology among Polish decision-makers and energy sector stakeholders.
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The debate about climate change is still strong and prominent, and the ways we deal with it are discussed on a regular basis. Organisations need to overcome certain barriers more efficiently and focus on driving change within the working environment, influencing central government to take more actions and avoid a ‘climate summit abject failure’ such as Copenhagen.
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How Babylon, New York used money raised from waste collection charges to overcome barriers to getting homeowners to make their properties more energy efficient.
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Austrian regions (Länder) play a significant role in energy, particularly regarding building efficiency and heating, including district heating. Upper Austria is one of nine regions, covering 12,000km2, with 1.4 million inhabitants. It is highly industrialised, with significant heavy industry (manufacture of steel and machinery).
This article is about how Upper Austria manages to get a third of its total energy use, and almost half its heat, from renewables.
read more »Winter fuel payments in the UK should be reformed to give more help to those in fuel poverty or off the gas grid. The government should be put under pressure to do much more to improve existing buildings, including regulating the private rented sector.
read more »The US Congress broke up for the summer without any progress on climate or energy legislation. The chances of getting any legislative progress on cap-and-trade, which have been small for some time, now look miniscule. However, rather than giving up, the Obama administration has responded with three actions that are signs of serious commitment.
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