Category:

Climate, Environment, Renewable Energy

Bank of England says company disclosures on climate risks will be mandatory

“Disclosing your plans can improve your credit rating, broaden your investor base, reduce your cost of finance, and economize on the fixed costs of meeting increasingly vocal investor requests for information,” the BoE’s executive director for markets, Andrew Hauser, told an Investment Association online event on Friday.

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Indian activists oppose plans to make Goa a coal transport hub

Activists say the projects are also likely to lead to the felling of thousands of trees in ecologically sensitive areas that are home to wildlife and bodies of water.

Alina Saldanha, a state assembly member from Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), wrote to the federal environment minister last week, saying she had “serious concerns” over environmental clearances given to some projects.

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NGT notice to Centre on plea for quashing notification on groundwater extraction

A bench headed by NGT Chairperson Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel said the Central Ground Water Authority (CGWA) was repeatedly issuing notification liberalising ground water extraction in water scarcity areas in spite of the need for stringent action, contrary to the very purpose for which it was setup.
The tribunal also issued notice to the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), and said water is a scarce resource on which life is dependent and its extraction has to be duly regulated.

In areas where there is water scarcity, extraction can be allowed on stringent conditions of ensuring recharge, it said.

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Climate Change means more Weather Disasters every year

The 2020 State of Climate Services report, compiled by 16 international agencies and financing institutions, calls on governments to put more money into early-warning systems that can improve countries’ ability to prepare for, respond to and mitigate the impact of such natural disasters.

“While COVID-19 generated a large international health and economic crisis from which it will take years to recover, it is crucial to remember that climate change will continue to pose an on-going and increasing threat to human lives, ecosystems, economies and societies for centuries to come,“ said WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas.

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Solar the new ‘king of electricity’ as renewables make up bigger slice of supply: IEA

Despite the increase in solar and wind power, carbon emissions are projected to pick up in 2021 after a 2.4 gigatonne (Gt) drop in 2020, and to exceed 2019 levels in 2027 before growing to 36 Gt in 2030, it added.

The IEA said gaps remain in many cases between long-term ambitions and specific near-term plans to curb emissions.

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U.N. chief urges development banks to stop financing fossil fuel projects

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged a virtual meeting of a coalition of finance ministers and economic policymakers from dozens of countries to ensure development banks phase out fossil fuel investments, rapidly scale up support for renewable energy, and back projects to help those most exposed to the impacts of climate change.

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Natural disasters surge in past 20 years, likely to continue to wreak havoc: U.N.

China (577) and the United States (467) recorded the highest number of disaster events from 2000 to 2019, followed by India (321), the Philippines (304) and Indonesia (278), the U.N. said in a report issued the day before the International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction. Eight of the top 10 countries are in Asia.

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September was world’s hottest on record, EU climate change service says

Extending a long-term warming trend caused by emissions of heat-trapping gases, high temperatures this year have played a major role in disasters from fires in California and the Arctic to floods in Asia, scientists say.

“As we go into an even warmer world, certain extremes are likely to happen more often and be more intense,” Copernicus senior scientist Freja Vamborg told Reuters, pointing to heat waves and periods of intense rain as examples of this.

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