2011

Can Bolivia become a green energy superpower?

Author: 

Dan Collyns
The Salar salt flat in Bolivia. Domestic opinion is divided about the exploitati
Show

Bolivia has vast reserves of lithium, seen as the green energy fuel of the future, which it wants to exploit on its own. But the lithium is locked underneath a 10,000 sq km salt flat

Bolivia has more lithium than anywhere else in the world but its potential to fuel lithium-ion batteries for electric cars is in danger of failing.

Level: 

Year: 

Category: 

Geographic Area: 

Could Asia have its own supergrid?

Author: 

Stewart Taggart
Could an Asian supergrid learn from visions for Europe and North Africa? One ini
Show

By 2050, Asia could be connected by a massive energy and information architecture, believes Stewart Taggart.

A ‘Pan-Asian Energy Infrastructure’ could be inspired by – and dramatically extend – the concept of cross-border grids elsewhere, most notably in Europe and North Africa. Examining infrastructure projects now underway in Asia, how might these organically develop into a ‘Pan-Asian Energy Infrastructure’ by 2050?

Level: 

Year: 

Category: 

Geographic Area: 

Disappearing Cerrado: 'Brazil's great untold environmental disaster' - audio slideshow

Author: 

Eric Hilaire
Disappearing Cerrado: 'Brazil's great untold environmental disaster' - audio sli
Show

Photographer Peter Caton talks about his visit to the Cerrado – the world's largest savannah. It contains 5% of the world's biodiversity, but is being destroyed at an incredible rate to make way for monocultures that may have devastating long-term effects.

During his trip, Caton worked with local Brazilian environmental group ISPN and WWF on their campaign calling for UK supermarkets to source sustainable soya

 

Level: 

Story category: 

Year: 

Category: 

Geographic Area: 

Global Carbon Emissions Reach Record 10 Billion Tons, Threatening 2 Degree Target

Global Carbon Emissions Reach Record 10 Billion Tons, Threatening 2 Degree Targe
Show

Global carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels have increased by 49 per cent in the last two decades, according to the latest figures by an international team, including researchers at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, University of East Anglia.

Published Dec. 4 in the journal Nature Climate Change, the new analysis by the Global Carbon Project shows fossil fuel emissions increased by 5.9 per cent in 2010 and by 49 per cent since 1990 -- the reference year for the Kyoto protocol.

Level: 

Year: 

Story category: 

Category: 

State of the world: U.N. poverty-reduction goals on track

Author: 

Peter Grier
State of the world: U.N. poverty-reduction goals on track -- Peter Grier
Show

Eleven years ago, at the Millennium Summit at United Nations headquarters in New York, the leaders of the world agreed to a plan meant to spur efforts to help the globe's poorest.

This blueprint involved a series of benchmarks – Millennium Development Goals – to measure the progress of developing nations on poverty, hunger, primary education, and so forth. The point was to rally international efforts to try to bring a better life to those who most needed it by 2015.

Level: 

Year: 

Story category: 

Category: 

Fears rise of food shortages in West Africa

Author: 

Azad Essa
Fears rise of food shortages in West Africa
Show

Millions of people in up to five West African countries will face a food crisis in early 2012 if early warning systems are ignored, the United Nations and aid officials say.

The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), together with the World Food Programme (WFP) and British charity Oxfam, said this week that failed harvests and low food reserves in the Sahel, and particularly the countries of Chad, Mauritania, Burkina Faso and Mali, would affect up to 11 million people.

Level: 

Story category: 

Year: 

Category: 

Geographic Area: 

EU study: clean energy costs no more in long run

Author: 

DON MELVIN
EU study: clean energy costs no more in long run
Show

BRUSSELS (AP) — A report issued Thursday says the European Union can cut its emissions of greenhouse gases dramatically by 2050 without spending any more money — and even, perhaps, saving a bit.

That estimate is based on an assessment that the new plants and equipment needed to switch to the generation of clean energy would cost more than continued reliance on fossil fuels, but that the clean energy itself would cost less.

Level: 

Story category: 

Year: 

Category: 

Geographic Area: 

Shock as retreat of Arctic sea ice releases deadly greenhouse gas

Author: 

Steve Connor
Dramatic and unprecedented plumes of methane – a greenhouse gas 20 times more po
Show

Dramatic and unprecedented plumes of methane – a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide – have been seen bubbling to the surface of the Arctic Ocean by scientists undertaking an extensive survey of the region.

The scale and volume of the methane release has astonished the head of the Russian research team who has been surveying the seabed of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf off northern Russia for nearly 20 years.

Level: 

Story category: 

Year: 

Category: 

Geographic Area: 

Could the desert sun power the world?

Author: 

Leo Hickman
The power station at Kuraymat uses both natural gas and solar panels to produce
Show

Green electricity generated by Sahara solar panels is being hailed as a solution to the climate change crisis

Level: 

Year: 

Story category: 

Category: 

UN: Global Access to Drinking Water Grows, But Poorest Falling Behind

Author: 

Adam Daley
A Gujjar or nomad woman carrying a pitcher filled with drinking water is silhoue
Show

The proportion of the world’s population with access to improved drinking water sources grew by 10 percent over a period roughly covering the past two decades, according to a United Nations study released Tuesday.

The study was released by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and UN World Health Organization (WHO).

The study found that between 1990 and 2008, the proportion of the world’s population with access to improved drinking water sources increased from 77 per cent to 87 percent.

Level: 

Year: 

Story category: 

Category: 

Pages