A recent report published in Nature Energy by researchers at two UK institutions, the University of Sheffield and Imperial College London, considers the “enabling conditions in Great Britain and the potential for rapid fuel switching in other coal-reliant countries.” The report found that the United Kingdom’s overall carbon emissions dropped by 6% in 2016, thanks to “cleaner electricity production.” Importantly, the report found that the reduction was not due to an increase in lower-carbon nuclear or renewable energy sources, but rather, the underestimated benefits of switching from coal to natural gas energy generation. If a fuel switch can be encouraged to make better use of existing gas infrastructure, the fuel switch may be able to scale up quickly and produce significant near-term emission reductions.
Archive for tag: Climate Change
MethaneSAT: Monitoring Methane Emissions From Space
On April 11, Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) President Fred Krupp announced the organization’s plans to create and launch a new satellite to monitor and measure global methane emissions—from space.
The ‘groundbreaking’ MethaneSAT plans were unveiled in a TED talk in Vancouver, BC.. The satellite will measure only emissions of methane, the powerful greenhouse gas responsible for roughly one quarter of the manmade global warming we currently experience. Methane is a particularly important cause of climate change because of its potency;while it is not as long-lasting in the atmosphere as carbon dioxide, it is “far more devastating” because it traps over 80 times more heat than carbon dioxide in the first twenty years after its release.
Water scarcity is a top global risk
The World Economic Forum is sounding the alarm – water crises are the top global risk over the next decade. Competition for this essential and highly localized resource is aggravating geopolitical conflict in already stressed environments. This was one of the key messages from Sandra Postel of National Geographic, who delivered the keynote address at the April 25 Northern Virginia Community College Green Festival.
Opinion: The frog, climate change, and Trump
There is a short analogy that has been used to explain the human response to climate change (whether in the form of denial, inaction, or delay, or simply nonchalance): that if you throw a frog into a pot of boiling water, he will hop right out, but if you put the frog in a pot of cold water and then turn on the burner, he will remain calmly in the pot until he is fully cooked.
The analogy does provide some insight into our lackadaisical response to a changing climate. From a human perspective, climate change is indeed a slow-moving phenomenon, but geologically-speaking, it is incredibly rapid. As a set of events and changes unleashed primarily by our discovery of fossil fuels some 300 years ago (and dramatically increased rates of extraction and combustion mostly in the last hundred), a cognitive sense of changing climate is distributed across only a dozen generations – either too slow to notice, or too ambiguous to come to conclusions about causality.
Leaders in Energy reaches 2,500 members
Leaders in Energy recently celebrated a huge milestone – over 2,500 members in the Leaders in Energy Research, Communications, Policies & Analysis group on LinkedIn.
Personal Commitments to Accelerate the Goals Envisioned in the Paris Agreement
We experienced an eventful year on clean energy and sustainability. Take, for example, the UN climate change negotiations in Paris, the Clean Power Plan, and...
First “Leaders in Energy Without Borders” Google Hangout Session
By SILVIA LEAHU-ALUAS Janine Finnell, Adriaan Kamp, and Silvia Leahu-Aluas, three sustainability and energy professionals and members of the Leaders in Energy group, have started...
Cities of The Future: Integrating Climate Planning and Smart Technologies
By ARMANDO GAETANIELLO, Leaders in Energy In 2012, the economic cost of climate change related damages had already topped the US government’s spending for transportation...
Sustainable and Renewable Energy: A Discussion of the Impact on Society
Join Janine Finnell, Founder and Clean Energy Ambassador, and Basile Lemba, Founder of the Fairfax Breakfast Club, as they discuss the impact climate change is...