Category:

Climate, Environment, Renewable Energy

Weather disasters becoming more frequent and costly, UN agency says

“Thanks to our early warning service improvement we have been able to have a decrease of the casualties at these kind of events, but the bad news is that the economic losses have been growing very rapidly and this growth is supposed to continue,” WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas told a press conference.

“We are going to see more climatic extreme because of climate change and this negative trend in climate will continue for the coming decades,” he said.

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UN hails end of poisonous leaded gas use in cars worldwide

Petroleum containing tetraethyllead, a form of lead, was first sold almost 100 years ago to increase engine performance. It was widely used for decades until researchers discovered that it could cause heart disease, strokes and brain damage.

UNEP said studies showed leaded gas caused measurable intellectual impairment in children and millions of premature deaths.

“The cost of environmental degradation is real,” said UNEP’s executive director, Inger Andersen, citing what she described as a “very, very ballpark number” of USD2.45 trillion in damage to the global economy prevented by the ban.

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Resting on climate action a $11 trillion opportunity for India: Deloitte Report

Over the next 50 years, the top five most impacted industries in terms of economic activity are expected to incur a significant share of climate-related loss.

These industries — services (government and private), manufacturing, retail and tourism, construction, and transport — currently account for more than 80 per cent of India’s GDP. Together, they form the basis of the country’s contemporary economic engine, it added.

Deloitte estimates that by 2070, these five industries alone would experience an annual loss in the value added to GDP of more than USD 1.5 trillion per year.

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Climate Change: Insurers can afford to drop Oil and Gas—but many won’t

To date, just one insurer has promised to take “significant action” in this regard, according to analysts at Societe Generale SA.

Australia’s Suncorp was the first to announce it would no longer provide coverage for all new oil and gas production projects.While insurers (23 in all) have moved to end their underwriting of coal-related activities, they have been slow to act on oil and gas. That’s mainly because the insurance market for those fossil fuels is considerably larger, with estimated premiums of more than $17 billion in 2018, compared with $6 billion for coal power, said Peter Bosshard, program director at the Sunrise Project and global coordinator of Insure Our Future (IOF).

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Climate Change: 80% of South Mumbai will be under water by 2050, Mumbai municipal commissioner

Mumbai municipal commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal said that Mumbai is the first city in South Asia that is preparing its climate action plan and acting on it.

“Earlier, we used to hear about climate change events like melting glaciers, but not directly affecting us. But now it has come to our doorstep,” he added.

Chahal said that last year for the first time in 129 years, a cyclone (Nisarga) hit Mumbai and thereafter in the last 15 months, there have been three cyclones. After that, on August 5, 2020, about 5 to 5.5 feet water was accumulated at Nariman point.

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China’s BRI project causing environmental degradation in South Asia, says report

South Asia is amongst the main regions likely to be hit severely by the negative environmental impact of climate change. BRI announced by Beijing in 2013, will exacerbate these trends, reported European Foundation for South Asian Studies (EFSAS).

The Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) report said the environmental trends in South Asia generally correspond to the development trajectory, that causes pollution through growing industrialisation, which has become one of the key environmental characteristics of South Asia, says EFSAS.

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ESG bonds likely to top USD 10 bn this year: JP Morgan

Globally, the environmental, social and governance (ESG) has become a key board-room topic since 2013-14 and soon investors have also been asking on the ESG principles of their investee companies.

The ESG idea has caught the attention of domestic corporates, investors and analysts as well and since 2015, 41 companies have raised over USD 17.2 billion in such funds of which USD 6.24 billion this year alone.
Green bonds will continue to be led by renewable energy players, according to Agarwal, who sees green bond issuances gaining traction even outside the renewable energy space, such as the ones by Ultratech Cement and Delhi Airport. Also, more green debt will be raised to cut carbon emissions by sectors like steel and cement.

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Swiss Re and Climeworks sign world’s first 10-yr carbon removal purchase agreement

”To mitigate the risks of climate change, the world needs to scale-up carbon removal on top of, not instead of emission reductions. By partnering with Climeworks we can play to our strengths in this endeavour, as a risk taker, investor, and forward-looking buyer of climate solutions”, said Christian Mumenthaler, Swiss Re’s Group Chief Executive Officer and Co-Chair of the World Economic Forum’s Alliance of CEO Climate Leaders.

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