The Future Crunch 18th June edition presented news worldwide regarding the progress being made on clean energy.
Here’s a quick run-through:
- The US $9 billion Keystone XL pipeline, which will transport barrels of “dirty oil” from Alberta’s tar sands, has been officially terminated, a sweet victory for climate advocates.
- In Australia, eight teenagers and a nun had dealt a significant blow to the coal industry when the federal court ruled that a country’s environment minister has an obligation to children to consider the harm caused by climate change when deciding to approve mine expansion. The kids and a nun acting as their guardian argued that the expansion of an NSW coal mine would contribute to climate change and endanger their future.
- Romania will close all its coal mines by 2032, introduce ecotaxes, and discourage registration of cars that is 15 years old and above.
- Canada will not approve any more thermal coal mining projects.
- South Korea’s third-largest pension fund, the National Pension Service, will stop investing in anything related to the construction of coal-fired power plants at home and overseas.
- In the US, 80% of all its coal plants will become more expensive to operate than building new wind or solar projects. As a result, these coal plants are also set to fold in the next four years.
- In Germany, one-fifth of its car production will either be hybrid or electric. Volkswagen is now the world’s third-largest EV manufacturer after Tesla and Renault-Nissan. Fiat cars will all become electric by 2030.
- Spain will say goodbye to fossil fuel production by 2042. The sale of ICE vehicles will be banned by 2040, and by 2030, 74% of its electricity must be from renewable sources. Currently, half of its electricity is renewable.
- In Senegal, the installation of two solar plants half a million people access to electricity. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, a massive off-grid solar project costing $100 million will power three northern cities.
- In Texas, although renewable energy was blamed for the widespread outage four months ago, investors are adding 15GW of clean power.
According to the article, the tide has turned in favour of climate and green technologies.
The year 2021 is “the economic and political realities of climate change have finally caught up to the scientific and technological ones”, which causes everyone to be optimistic.
To read more good news from around the world, from progress in medicine to changes in migration laws in the US, protection of peatlands in Indonesia, planting of three billion new trees in South Korea, to preserving 80 griffon cultures in Bulgaria, click the link below:
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