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Recovering urban wildlife isn’t just about protecting a city’s parks and rivers, but also making its streets, homes and skyscrapers greener.
Their stories and solutions have now been collected in a new e-book Resilience Matters: Opportunities for Action to Strengthen Communities
The good news is that there are solutions, many of which involve bringing nature (and food) resources back into the city: more parks, more trees, natural systems (“green infrastructure”) to reduce stormwater pollution, “green” roofs, and even urban farms, such as concentrated urban farming
Annual GHG emissions from U.S. households peaked in 2005, the researchers report in Environmental Research Letters. Since then, emissions have been decreasing by about 2% per year.
One reason for this that newer homes and appliances are more energy efficient. But the main explanation is that the U.S. electric grid is decarbonizing. Less fossil fuel power and more renewable power means that the average kilowatt hour of electricity results in fewer GHG emissions than it used to.
The decrease isn’t fast enough to keep global warming within 1.5 °C – that would require emissions to fall about 7% per year.
US President Joe Biden has pledged to end public funding of ‘carbon-intensive’ fossil fuel projects overseas, bringing America in line with EU plans. However, the wording may leave the door open to gas, writes EURACTIV's media partner, Climate Home News.
Biden has promised to reenter the Paris Agreement, marking the end of a four-year assault on climate protections under Donald Trump's presidency
The Democratic presidential candidate says he would return the US to the international agreement 77 days after the country withdrew
In this episode of the Local Energy Rules podcast, host John Farrell speaks with Lynn Benander from Co-op Power about community solar, its barriers, and how communities across the country are building a cleaner, cheaper future.… Read More
In this episode of the Local Energy Rules podcast, host John Farrell speaks with Jessie Denver of East Bay Community Energy. Farrell and Denver discuss how distributed energy resources can prepare communities for disaster — and increase resilience after it hits.… Read More
2020 is the most crucial year yet for humanity's plan to dodge the bullet of catastrophic global warming, experts said Saturday, warning that the narrow path to safety was riddled with pitfalls, from the US election to Brexit.
In this episode of the Local Energy Rules podcast, host John Farrell speaks with Subin DeVar of the Sustainable Economies Law Center about the nation’s first residential rooftop community solar project. In addition to directing SELC’s community renewable energy program, DeVar is on the board of the People Power Solar Cooperative, which developed the novel project.… Read More
Editor's Note: This blog post is part of a series of city case studies launched by GMF's Energy Allies project, which aims to foster strategic partnerships and collaboration between local civil society and government leaders to support cities’ energy transition.
Today, top energy business executives from both sides of the Atlantic meet in Brussels to discuss further ways to enhance LNG trade, the role that competitively-priced U.S.-LNG can play on the EU market and the growing opportunities for using LNG in the transport sector. This High-Level Energy Forum, opened by EU Commissioner for Climate Action and Energy Miguel Arias Cañete and U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry, gives American and European businesses the opportunity to chart further actions to fully harvest commercial opportunities in the LNG trade. These will range from new infrastructure for upstream development, liquefaction and re-gasification to pipeline network distribution as well as new business models and financial instruments in a changing market. It also provides U.S. and European decision-makers from companies in the LNG sector with match-making and deal-making opportunities.
The gathering, which is a clear signal of the strengthened of EU-U.S. cooperation in the field of energy, provided a further occasion for EU Commissioner Miguel Arias Cañete to meet with the U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry and discuss broader aspects of EU-US energy relations.
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Food System Resilience: A Planning Guide for Local Governments is a resource guide aimed at helping local governments build food system resilience in a way that promotes equitable and just food systems.
Plenty of research has shown that in the long term, the costs of climate change will be much greater than the costs of retooling society to reduce emissions and keep climate change in check. But the conventional wisdom has been that it will take many decades to “break even” on decarbonization from a financial point of view. And the prospect of short-term pain for only long-term gain has made it difficult to generate political support for climate action now.
From the Wiki for local government innovation, the Govlaunch podcast shares the stories of local government innovators and their efforts to build better governments. Through conversations with cities and towns around the world, each episode explores creative solutions to the challenges communities face, and what local governments can learn from each other’s successes and failures.
Visit govlaunch.com for more stories and examples of local government innovation.
The new US administration offers the opportunity for a reboot of transatlantic relations, especially in relation to civil society. The calls and grievances expressed by Women’s movements, the Black Lives Matter movement, and the climate generation resonate strongly in both Europe and the US. These movements are central actors in a potential reconfiguration of the EU-US relationship. Their diverse and participatory nature, as well as the commitment to justice they embody, could form the foundation for building a new transatlantic narrative.
Just transition describes an intentional shift toward a society in which the economy and the environment can thrive simultaneously,
ear’s Glasgow climate talks a success
President Donald Trump said three years ago the U.S. would leave the Paris Agreement, and it's finally official.
Most food waste gets thrown into landfills rather than being recycled—but one abandoned dump is getting a makeover
To help get essential workers around, cities are revising traffic patterns, suspending public transit fares, and making more room for bikes and pedestrians.
The fight for a just transition and for economic democracy in the US will hinge on the strength of place-based networks and regimes
In this episode of our Voices of 100% series from Local Energy Rules, host John Farrell speaks with two leaders in Burlington, Vermont, about the completed 100% renewable electricity transition. Mayor Miro Weinberger and Darren Springer, general manager of Burlington Electric, explain how the city now looks ahead to “net zero.”… Read More
On June 18, Donald Trump launched his campaign for the November 2020 U.S. presidential election, targeting a potential second consecutive term that would be rooted, among other things, in the United States' effective withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement the day after the election. At the same time, some Democrats propose to found a Green New Deal (GND), a major economic and environmental project inspired by the investment plan put in place in the aftermath of the Great Depression. In this post, IDDRI deciphers both the national political issues specific to the United States associated with this political project and its possible implications in terms of international climate and environmental governance.
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