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Tag: 2020

Your Guide to the Clean Energy Implications of the 2020 Election

Posted on by dishanth
Your Guide to the Clean Energy Implications of the 2020 Election

Clean energy and climate change have received unprecedented levels of attention in the 2020 U.S. presidential contest between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. The candidates hold strikingly oppositional views on decarbonizing the economy and leading global partnerships to combat climate change. The differences between the two candidates on these matters have been on stark display throughout this year’s campaign, from last month’s presidential debates to Trump’s last-minute push to highlight fracking as a campaign issue in the contested state of Pennsylvania.

The stakes of this election’s outcome are high. To combat what he’s called an “existential threat to humanity” from climate change, Biden has pledged to rejoin the Paris Agreement, commit the country to decarbonizing electricity generation by 2035, and issue a series of executive orders that would surpass the climate ambition of the Obama-Biden administration. Trump, who has questioned the reality of climate change caused by human activity, has committed his administration to deregulating industries and rolling back energy efficiency and automotive fuel economy standards to increase economic competitiveness, as well as expanding the roles of the coal, oil and gas industries in the country’s energy future.

To help you make sense of what’s at stake, we’ve compiled Greentech Media’s essential coverage of the 2020 election and its consequences for clean energy.

 

What’s at Stake for Clean Energy in the U.S. Election?

If you read one piece on clean energy and the election, make it this one. Insights from GTM writers explain how the outcome of the election could impact solar, energy storage, utilities and wind.

 

Biden’s First 100 Days: What Would They Look Like for Clean Energy?

How could Joe Biden, if elected, pursue the climate and clean energy policies his campaign has laid out? Policy experts discuss the executive actions and congressional policies that are most likely to gain traction in the first 100 days of a Biden presidency.

 

Biden Pledges $2T in Clean Energy and Infrastructure Spending

In July, the Biden campaign laid out a $2 trillion plan designed to encourage clean energy deployment and accelerate the energy transition. The plan built on a climate platform released earlier that month and developed by a “unity task force” of supporters of both Biden and U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, a key rival for the Democratic Party nomination, and was geared to unite the progressive and moderate wings of the party on climate policy.

 

What the Kamala Harris VP Pick Means for Biden’s Energy and Climate Platform

A co-sponsor of the Green New Deal resolution (which the Biden campaign has not officially and entirely endorsed), U.S. Senator and vice-presidential nominee Kamala Harris framed the environmental policies of her presidential bid around environmental justice. She’s to the left of Biden on some environmental issues but matches him as a moderate in other respects. In response to her selection to fill out the Democratic ticket, environmental activists noted Harris’ willingness to listen to feedback.

 

Can U.S. Lawmakers Agree on Big Climate and Clean Energy Legislation?

Even if Biden wins, his administration faces a difficult path to pass significant clean-energy or climate-focused legislation in Congress. Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse shared the stage in an October event to discuss areas where bipartisan consensus may exist on energy policy.

 

WoodMac: Biden Loss Would End Hopes of U.S. Decarbonization by 2050

When it comes to the climate crisis, this election has extreme consequences. An analysis from Wood Mackenzie lays out the incredibly high stakes. “If Biden’s bid fails, the U.S. will forfeit four more years in the fight against climate change. This would dramatically reduce the possibility of eliminating carbon emissions from the region’s power grid before 2050,” writes Dan Shreve, WoodMac’s research director, in the report.

 

Would U.S. Solar Tariffs Disappear Under a Biden Administration? Don’t Count on It.

On most policies related to clean energy, Joe Biden and Donald Trump are leagues apart. But under a potential Biden administration, solar tariffs could “still be on the table.” GTM examines the likelihood that this divisive policy sticks around post-2020 if Democrats win the White House.

 

Energy Becomes a Hot Issue in the Final Days of the Election

The hosts of The Energy Gang recap the role of energy and climate in the 2020 election. The episode also highlights important down-ballot races to watch.

 

What to Watch for in Climate and Energy After Election Day

Th hosts of Political Climate, along with Josh Freed, founder of Third Way’s Climate and Energy Program, outline the policies that could take root in a Biden administration and how those contrast with what a continuation of the Trump presidency may look like.

 

Examining Efforts to Elect Climate Candidates

Joe Biden has pitched the most ambitious climate plans of any presidential candidate to date. Political Climate talks to two groups, Vote Climate U.S. PAC and Climate Cabinet Action Fund, that are pushing for more aggressive climate policies from candidates at the state level as well as those running for Congress.

 

John Podesta’s Climate Policy Recommendations for a Biden Presidency

John Podesta worked in Bill Clinton’s White House, led Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and founded think tank the Center for American Progress. The long-time Democratic strategist lays out his thoughts on how a hypothetical Biden administration should approach climate policy and what it could accomplish in its first 100 days.

 

How Joe Biden’s Climate Plan Stacks Up

Political Climate digs into Biden’s $2 trillion clean energy plan, which includes a nationwide clean electricity standard and investments in research, development and federal procurement.

 

 

Source: Green Tech Media

Tokyo 2020 Olympics: from cardboard beds to recycled medals, how the Games are going green.

Posted on by dishanth
Tokyo 2020 Olympics: from cardboard beds to recycled medals, how the Games are going green.
  • Tokyo 2020 is aiming to be the greenest-ever Olympic Games.
  • Athletes will sleep on recyclable cardboard beds.
  • The event’s medals will be made from recycled precious metals.
  • Organizers hope the event will emit no more than 2.93 million tonnes of CO2.

Tokyo 2020’s dream of being the lowest-emission Olympic Games ever even extends to where the athletes will sleep – on cardboard beds.

The beds, which will be recycled after the event, are designed to withstand weights of up to 200 kilogrammes, although the organizers warn that they may break if jumped on.

Mattresses on the 18,000 cardboard beds provided for the event are also made to be fully recyclable after use.

 

No jumping now! Recyclable beds for Tokyo 2020.
Image: AP

 

It’s all part of an effort by the Tokyo Olympic committee to reduce the event’s carbon footprint. The 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games were estimated to have emitted 4.5 million tonnes of CO2. The 2012 London Games, which claimed to be the greenest ever, generated 3.3 million tonnes.

Tokyo wants to beat London’s record and forecasts that the event will emit no more than 2.93 million tonnes of CO2.

A major source of emissions at any international event comes from flying in competitors and spectators. The International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) says a return flight from New York to Tokyo will generate 946 kg of CO2 per passenger.

The organizers have devised an independently audited carbon offset programme designed to ensure the Games – which open on 24 July, followed by the Paralympics on 25 August – emit as little carbon as possible.

Gold, silver, bronze – all recycled

Electricity used at the Games will come from renewable sources such as solar, biomass and hydro. Energy efficiency measures include fitting only LED lights to all the event venues.

Tokyo 2020 is even using precious metals recovered from 6.2 million discarded mobile phones to cast its medals. The recycling effort yielded the 32 kg of gold, 3,500 kg of silver and 2,200 kg of bronze needed to produce 5,000 medals.

Podiums for the medal ceremonies are being made from recycled plastic donated by the public and recovered from the oceans. After the Games, these will be used for educational purposes or recycled to make bottles by sponsor Procter & Gamble.

 

Autonomous electric shuttles will ferry athletes between venues.
Image: Toyota

 

Zero-emission transport will also be used, including fuel-cell buses, autonomous battery shuttles and hydrogen-powered forklift trucks, which will be used to move heavy items around the Olympic sites.

Earthquake legacy of hope

The Olympic torch has been produced using aluminium waste from temporary housing that was built in the aftermath of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. And the uniforms worn by officials are being made from polyester derived from recycled bottles.

 

Even the Olympic torch is recycled.
Image: IOC

 

The Olympic village plaza will be built with sustainably-sourced timber donated by local authorities across Japan. After the Games, the timber will be reused as public benches or to build public buildings.

 

 

Written by

Douglas Broom, Senior Writer, Formative Content

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.

Davos 2020 will be carbon neutral: here’s how

Posted on by dishanth
Davos 2020 will be carbon neutral: here’s how

In January 2020, the World Economic Forum will call on companies to raise their ambitions for climate action at the Annual Meeting in Davos-Klosters under the theme “Stakeholders for a Cohesive and Sustainable World.” The meeting’s 50th edition will bring together over 3,000 participants from around the world. For the fourth year, it will also be climate neutral.

So what exactly does being climate neutral mean?

For one thing, we do everything we can to reduce emissions in the first place. This involves looking at everything: from our use of materials and resources (this year, we are actually changing the configuration of the Congress Centre layout to use less carpet), to the food we serve (more local, seasonal and plant-based than ever before) and transportation (our fleet of cars and buses is 90% hybrid or electric this year).

We will keep on looking for ways to reduce our environmental footprint. For everything that we cannot eliminate, we offset by investing in schemes that reduce emissions levels in the atmosphere.

We have been calculating and offsetting all emissions to the Annual Meeting – including staff and participant air travel – by funding certified offsetting projects around the world since 2017. Beyond carbon emission reduction, these initiatives also create jobs and improved living conditions. For example, one of the projects selected to offset the 2018 meeting was Rwandan Boreholes, which has already provided 50 million litres of water to over 68,000 people and saved 85,000 tonnes of wood that would have been used to boil water for purification.

To offset the 2020 Annual Meeting, the Forum has decided to continue supporting two key projects: the Jacundá project in the Amazonian “Arc of Deforestation” known for its disappearing tropical forest, which protects an area of 95,000 hectares of native forest and sustainably produced rubber, açai and brazil nuts, and the Biogas for Greener Farms, which uses methane generated by the processing of manure in biogas digesters as energy and the residue as fertiliser for local farms in Switzerland.

Here are some other examples of offsetting projects supported by the Forum in collaboration with South Pole, a leading provider of global climate solutions.

 

Waste Composters

Although composting human waste, manure, or landfill is hardly new, reducing its carbon emissions is a more recent concern. Biogas digesters recycle the output of composting to have a twofold benefit: reducing greenhouse gas emissions and enabling the production of green energy. Benefits include maintaining soil fertility and supporting food safety.

Composting New Dehli ensures that solid waste from fruit and vegetable markets in Delhi, India, doesn’t end up in landfills and transforms 73,000 tonnes of it into about 200 tonnes of compost every year. In Cambodia, the National Biodigester programme not only treats waste then used as fertilizer by over 18,000 farms but also replaces biomass stoves, saving 150,000 tonnes of wood since 2006.

 

Cook Stoves

Conventional stoves are inefficient and produce indoor smoke – the equivalent of burning 400 cigarettes per hour. Cook stoves, which have fewer fumes and require less energy and wood, provide health, energy and environmental benefits.

In India, where it’s estimated that toxic fumes from conventional cookstoves cause 500,000 premature deaths per year, The Breathing Space Cook Stove has already provided efficient cookstoves to over 200,000 families. In Mali, Katene Clean Cookstoves created 400 jobs in a local stove manufacturing factory and planted 2,400m2 of trees to counter desertification in a country that is more than half covered by the Sahara.

Communities gathering firewood in China’s Mamize Nature Reserve in Sichuan province threaten the surrounding biodiversity and the habitat of giant pandas, an issue the WWF Mamize Firewood-Saving Cook Stove Project has been working to address.

Small interventions on cooking stoves, such as improved ignition rates, can also benefit users financially – Highveld Air Quality – NFS project in South Africa, for example, saves users about $30 a year.

 

Hydro

Sustainable hydro plants are the most efficient way to generate electricity, but their cost is often a barrier to their construction. In Brazil, Incomex Hydro has set up three hydro plants, which produce clean energy and reduce over 83,000 tonnes of CO2 per year – that’s the equivalent of electricity use for 14,000 houses.

On a bigger scale, China’s Huóshui Grouped Small Hydropower has been supplying energy for over half a million rural Chinese homes every year and has supported the community with sustainable agricultural workshops for over 170 people, social initiative funding, and an educational programme about environment protection in which about 200 students have taken part.

 

Wind Power

Another renewable source of energy that can satisfy the world’s increasing demand is wind power. In Viet Nam, where economic growth and power demands are outpacing supplies, Bac Lieu Wind Farm set up the first large-scale coastal wind power project of the country.

In India, Mitcon wind plants have been supplying the national grid, creating employment, and supporting women entrepreneurs. Argentina’s economic difficulties from the early 2000s generated an energy crisis and an inability to meet power demands in sustainable ways. Today, Rawson windfarm works in Patagonia, one of the windiest regions of the world.

Reducing emissions remains the first priority of the Forum’s sustainability efforts for the Annual Meeting 2020, which form part of the boarder institutional sustainability strategy. Offsetting is used to neutralize the emissions that could not be avoided, in a way that fosters sustainable development in Switzerland and abroad.

 

 

Written by

Aylin Elci, Communications Officer, World Economic Forum Geneva

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.