Articles containing the tag ‘energy efficiency’

Climate powers, policy and performance in Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales and London

The Labour Party came to power in 1997 committed to devolving powers to Scotland and Wales, and re-creating a London-wide government. It was also determined to improve the political situation in Northern Ireland and was willing to use devolution to achieve this. Therefore, the last 12 years have seen considerable change to the constitution of the UK. Climate change was not a driving force behind any of this, but, nevertheless, the new tiers of government have had significant impact on what the UK is doing.

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Editorial 14 September 2009: Is the ‘peak oil’ debate relevant?

Should we worry about oil and gas running out? No – for three reasons.

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Editorial 17 November 2009: Hu and Obama talk climate

Presidents Hu and Obama met today in Beijing and climate change was high on the agenda. China and the US are now the two largest producers of greenhouse gas emissions, responsible for over a third of total annual global emissions – though the US has caused 30% of the total historical contribution, whereas China has contributed just 7%, and US per capita emissions are 23.5 tons, whereas China’s are 5.5 tons.

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Editorial 18 February 2010: Obama builds bridges through technology

In November 2009, 3% of OECD electricity was generated by renewables other than hydro. 14% came from hydro. And this was only 17% of what electricity was then used, not total energy used.

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Editorial 23 July 2009: Sweden pushes EU energy efficiency

A meeting of EU energy and environment ministers this week in the Swedish town of Are is discussing energy efficiency. It is certainly good news that politicians are focussing on this. Using energy wastefully makes no climate or economic sense, but many politicians regard the subject as too ‘unsexy’ to be worth much attention.

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Editorial 23 November 2009: Copenhagen, targets and policies

Not surprisingly, the media discussion of climate change is dominated by the countdown to Copenhagen. EU environment ministers are meeting today to try to strengthen the European negotiating position, though they won’t be able to make progress on the key issue of funding, as this is up to finance ministers.

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Policies and performance in Obama’s first year

How well have Obama and Energy Secretary Chu done so far on promoting energy efficiency, renewables, CCS and electric vehicles? A very positive assessment is made by the Center for American Progress.

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Policy and performance of the States in the USA

This article reviews the climate performance of different US states and is mainly based on Climate Change 101: state action published by the Pew Centre on Global Climate Change and on State of the States 2008: Renewable Energy Development and the Role of Policy published by the US Department of Energy’s Renewable Energy Laboratory.

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