The next Industrial Revolution will be people-powered Miguel Mendonça 5th November, 2009 Switching to decentralised renewable energy doesn’t just mean a new source of power – it means a revolution that will be both social and economic The way the world appears to work is as follows. Those with influence, generally at the centre of Continue Reading →
Peak oil before 2020 a ‘significant risk’, say experts David Strahan 8th October, 2009 A new report highlights how woefully unprepared the Government is for a looming peak in oil production There is a ‘significant risk’ that conventional oil production will peak before 2020, and forecasts that delay the event beyond 2030 are based on Continue Reading →
Plans to expand carbon markets at UN climate talks this December could trigger a second ‘sub-prime’ style financial collapse and fail to protect the world from global warming catastrophe, a new report from Friends of the Earth warns
Contact: Henry Rummins or Rose Hall, Friends of the Earth press office – Tel: +44 20 7566 1649
CARBON TRADING ‘THE NEXT SUB-PRIME’ – NEW RESEARCH
New report, ‘A Dangerous Obsession’, is available at: http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/reports/dangerous_obsession.pdf
Today, China is already the world’s leading renewable energy producer in absolute numbers, with an installed capacity of 152 GW out of an approximately 800 GW total.
Hydropower has traditionally been the country’s main source of renewable energy, with over 95% of renewable energy coming from large dam projects such as the famous Three Gorges Dam. The second most common source of grid-connected renewable energy is wind power. As the third fastest-growing wind power market (after the US and Spain), China’s installed wind capacity has increased from 2.3 GW at the end of 2005 to a capacity of about 12.8 GW at the end of 2008.
In contrast, solar power generation has been almost non-existent in China. While solar thermal power is in widespread use, the central government and the five major utilities have deemed photovoltaic (PV) power too expensive, particularly compared with coal, which can generate electricity at an eighth of the cost. Therefore, despite the fact that China’s solar PV industry is the world leader in terms of production, so far over 95% of the produced units have been exported.
The largest U.S subsidies to fossil fuels are attributed to tax breaks that aid foreign oil production, according to research from the Environmental Law Institute (ELI). The study, which reviewed fossil fuel and energy subsidies for Fiscal Years 2002-2008, revealed that the lion’s share of energy subsidies supported energy sources that emit high levels of greenhouse gases.
The research demonstrates that the federal government provided substantially larger subsidies to fossil fuels than to renewables. Fossil fuels benefited from approximately US $72 billion over the seven-year period, while subsidies for renewable fuels totaled only $29 billion.
Migration: the true story
I begin this column as someone who has been accused of being a ”shameful” person, ”a nasty piece of work”, an ”ungrateful, unkind maggot”, because I recently wrote about refugee policy in a column that was described as ”bollocks”, ”biased”, ”poorly researched”, ”sensationalist drivel”, ”crap”, ”rubbish”, ”unworthy tabloid rubbish” and ”playing the race card”.
These insults are useful. They are irrational, immature, febrile. They are also consistent with a slightly more subtle orthodoxy that argues that anyone who supports the detention of asylum seekers on Christmas Island is not merely on the wrong side of a moral and legal argument, but is of cruel and deficient character.