What risks does climate change pose to the stability of financial institutions? What role can and should supervisors play in mitigating these risks? These increasingly pressing questions were topics of discussion in Amsterdam on Friday, where 200 central bankers and financial supervisors from over 30 countries gathered during the first ever International Climate Risk Conference.
Swedish tech startup Einride does not have the fame Tesla has, nor the experience in car manufacturing of established automobile brands like Volvo. Yet, if the company succeeds in carrying out its ambitions, it is going to have a driverless truck in operation way before any of the established carmakers do.
During the past few months, several institutions have released rather optimistic numbers about the energy transition in the Netherlands. Although substantial wind power additions were realized, and solar growth is accelerating, overall performance is still amongst the worst in the European Union, with the Netherlands now lagging firmly behind its renewable energy targets.
On the 13nd of November, the Netherlands’ first sustainable parking garage opened. Taking the concept of sustainability in its broadest meaning, the facility is not just operating at zero energy emissions, but has also been constructed in a recycling-friendly way. In light of the monumental transformation that is about to reshape the car market, the ease with which the facility’s components can be reused might turn out to be its most valuable feature.
The cost of solar power has never been lower. This is reflected by installations — massive projects are under construction around the globe and a record-breaking 74 gigawatts of installations were completed in 2016. Although this growth is unequally distributed over different countries and dominated by utility-scale solar farms, the smaller-scale residential segment has contributed a fair share. The main driver of growth, continuously dropping costs, is incentivizing companies and individuals alike to go solar. Certainly, this is what has been going on in the Netherlands.
The Ministers pool of the Netherlands will reportedly be expanding as the new centered coalition takes office, adding among others a Minister of Climate Affairs and Environment.
The Dutch city of Amsterdam is making substantial progress towards a wide range of sustainability goals, most notably regarding overall energy consumption.
On January the 1st of 2017, Dutch National Railway company NS made a monumental step towards a world in which we no longer compromise the wellbeing of future generations for the sake of our own livelihood. NS is switching to wind energy from newly erected wind farms for transporting all of its 600,000 daily passengers, which is leading to the company cutting carbon emissions equivalent to the electricity consumption of the entire population of Amsterdam — 1.2 billion kWh a year! This bold move worked out great for the company’s public image, as it was featured in news outlets around the globe. NS found itself being widely lauded as exemplary for how companies can contribute to reducing a country’s carbon footprint.
The Netherlands is the country where all passenger trains are powered by wind energy, where your groceries can be delivered by all-electric vans, and where people cycle over solar bike lanes, so the Dutch must be sustainability champions, no?
Clean, fresh air. Those who are fortunate enough to live in parts of the world where pollution levels have not gone insane yet will barely be aware of its exceptional value, but those living in places where there just doesn’t seem to be such a thing as leaving the house without ruining your respiratory system know its virtue. Interesting news in that regard involves South Korea.
