Another annual United Nations conference on climate change has ended and international negotiators once again failed to agree to a new treaty on reducing global greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels.
Countries gathering the past two weeks in Warsaw made earnest speeches, said they understood the challenge that humans face from increasing levels of carbon in our warming atmosphere and then, as at past conferences, they did very little to address the increasingly complex problem.
The end result — a weak agreement to continue working towards a pathway for a new global legally-binding climate change treaty by 2015 — was more than frustrating since there are already proven alternatives to using coal, oil and gas to power our world.
Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, said some progress had been made at the conference, which ended Saturday. continue reading »
Wind generation now meets a significant percentage of electrical demand globally and last year the world added a record 44.8 gigawatts (GW) of wind power, bringing the total to more than 282.5 GW, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).
In its annual report for 2012, the IEA said that the global wind power capacity now operating in 100 countries can provide more than 3% of the world’s electricity demand.
The report noted that the IEA believes that 15% to 18% of global electricity can be met by wind energy by 2050. continue reading »
More than two-thirds of UK citizens support building more wind farms in their immediate areas.
The poll, conducted by market research agency ComRes, also shows that only 33% of people support fracking in their area while just 31% of people support nuclear power.
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You could call Father Iustin a pioneer. He installed a wind turbine long before the hundreds that you can now see from this hill appeared. He was the first monk in the Constanța region to power his monastery with renewable technology and now he gladly advises other monasteries to do the same.
“I like being a monk,” says Father Iustin Petre, one of the founders of the Casian Monastery in Romania. “It is free, no stress.”
It is quiet up here. Birds float on the wind over a landscape that would be at home in the Mediterranean. A small wind toy spins on a post and even the cats and dogs that inhabit every Romanian scene are friendlier.
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The wind industry is the fastest-growing source of power in the United States and employs over 80,000 American workers, two new government studies show.
“The tremendous growth in the U.S. wind industry over the past few years underscores the importance of consistent policy that ensures America remains a leader in clean energy innovation,” Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said in an accompanying press release.
Moniz’ reference to the importance of consistent policy contrasts with many European countries where governments are cutting or changing their renewable energy policies, creating massive uncertainty in the wind sector and putting growth at risk. continue reading »