Prof. Peter Droege, president of EUROSOLAR:

They were the soft and late effects of the oil crises of the 1970s, the finally successful efforts of Europe to introduce summer time and the time shift, based on a century of various attempts in both war and peace years. On 6 April 1980, most European countries, Germany ahead, adjusted their clocks to make working hours more synchronous with summer daylight. The first common summer time lasted from 6 April 1980, 1400 (CET) to 28 September 1980, 15:00 (CEST).

Today there are new discussions and efforts to reverse or change this, although certainly at least the PV-owners benefit a little from it. German Chancellor Angela Merkel recently tended to give priority to summer time all year round, an idea which is shared by some representatives of the renewable energy industry.

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On Tuesday 7 April 2020, the French Senate's Economic Affairs Committee held a videoconference hearing with Elisabeth Borne, Minister for Ecological and Solidarity Transition, on the impact of the covid-19 crisis on the Government's energy and climate policy. According to President Sophie Primas, "placing the energy transition at the heart of the recovery plan is the sine qua non condition to emerge from the economic crisis without deviating from our climate commitments, as they result from the Energy-Climate Law, adopted by the Senate in a spirit of consensus".

Find the full article, in French though, here.

"Are financial giants contradicting their own climate pledges?" asks Ben Piven for Aljazeera. And sums up a report saying that corporate-level financing by five big firms contributes to oil drilling in the Amazon.

As we know, renewables are already cheaper than new coal-fired power stations in all major markets. They are exposing almost a trillion dollars of new investments and denting Australia's coal export. Peter Hannam from The Sydney Morning Herald gives further information on the analysis publish by Carbon tracker.