On Friday, the world received another candidate for the role of UN Secretary General. She’s a major figure familiar to all players in the international movement to forestall and adapt to climate change: Christiana Figueres, the former executive secretary (head) of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. As a player in … [continued]
Today, Pope Francis I has released his first encyclical, Laudato si (Praised be), widely anticipated for its focus on climate change and the links to human poverty and economic development. The world religious leader started off his official pronouncement by quoting the Canticle of Creatures, a favorite hymn composed by St. Francis of … [continued]
Almost everyone in the media has taken a stab at summarizing, if not snap-judging, the results of Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s one-day UN climate summit last week. The meeting had a real name, but Robert N. Stavins in his New York Times runup to the conference was the only writer I … [continued]
Intuitively, people concerned about the environment have reasoned that riding a bike or taking public transit offer more ecological benefits than driving a car, especially when they’re traveling alone. Now the University of California and the New York-based international nonprofit Institute for Transportation and Development Policy have provided some heady … [continued]
As unprecedented storms, extinctions, and water, food, and energy wars continue to touch our world, warnings about destructive human-made climate change multiply and increase in stridency. At the United Nations in New York yesterday, some possible solutions were officially released. (VIDEO available here.) Experts from leading world research institutes convened … [continued]
This year’s international off-grid renewable energy conference in Manila—IOREC— has been exploring use of off-grid renewable energy and minigrids from the inclusive perspective of all its stakeholders. Conferences come and go, but this one seems to have achieved balance and a politics-free sense of hope for the industry, investors, new … [continued]
The Abu Dhabi Ascent* opening ceremony was a powerful one, with the clear highlight being Al Gore’s powerful presentation. One key focus that was a thread throughout was that we are really running out of time. We have about 10 to 15 years left before things are essentially out of … [continued]
[social_buttons] In a critical step to move international action on climate change forward, the United Nations (UN) just formed a climate financing taskforce. This high-level taskforce will be co-chaired by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. The taskforce will investigate ways of raising $100 million … [continued]
