World Council for Renewable Energy
#EnergyRevolutionNow
In early autumn, a federal grand jury pressed charges against two environmental activists for acts of sabotage against one of the most important pipeline. Ben Ehrenreich explains the interrelations for The Nation.
Read more at: thenation.com
REN21 is taking stock of cities’ efforts to transition to renewable energy with their first global status report on Renewable Cities 2019. Cities are responsible for a large share of emissions but at the same time, they have good reasons to change track. UNEP’s Emissions Gap Report 2019 shows that in contrast to many public pledges by politicians, governments and companies, the world is by no means on its way to reduce emissions and create a low-carbon economy any time soon. More than 70% of cities are already affected by climate change and numbers will only go up.
EUROSOLAR stands for comprehensive and peaceful sustainability through distributed and renewable energy. Its very mission and future visions are founded on real democracy and self-determination of local and regional cultures and identities: the evolution and liberation of the human spirit in pursuit of planetary harmony and human rights.
These universal values are fundamentally incompatible with the ugly resurrection of oppressive, centralist, oligarchic and injust policies and practices in various countries of Europe and the world, seeking to deny these basic rights, and squelching the ability to think and act freely in the interest of environmental sustainability and social justice.
In May REN21 published their annual report on the global state of renewables in 2018. Renewable energy technologies have seen a relatively stable market and the increase of new capacities remains constant. Main progresses have been achieved in the power sector, while heating, cooling and transport have seen far less growth, according to the report. A lack of policy support and slow development of new technologies causes the comparatively slow uptake of renewables in heating and cooling. In the transport sector, renewable energy penetration remains low, even though the market for electric vehicles is growing significantly. With 181 GW newly added capacity in the power sector the increase remains constant, following years of growth. Due to stable policies, renewable energies accounted for an estimated 26% of global electricity generation by the end of the year.
The Triumph of the Sun - The Energy of the New Century
The physicist, long-time EU Commission official and comrade-in-arms of Hermann Scheer has published his legacy. It is fascinating to read how the new renewable energies, i.e. photovoltaics, wind power, modern biomass and solar thermal energy have grown exponentially from small beginnings to the present day. Wolfgang Palz puts this development into context by providing hallmarks of earth's history and the achievements of physics, thereby proving his optimism that mankind will make the transition to a sustainable use of energy with facts and figures.
The leading role of Germany and the European Union in the industrialization of photovoltaics and wind power is scrutinised as well as their current relapse behind China, Japan, the USA and India. The redirection of the large-scale extractive industry of fossil and nuclear fuels to the phase-out level does not result from insight into mankind's limitations but from renewables having become more attractive financially. The European Union has played its part in this development, as did Wolfgang Palz, who was jointly responsible for the course taken for many years.