Breaking Energy was honored to be included in the recent North American Student Energy Summit held in New York City. Author and environmental activist Bill Hewitt and Breaking Energy’s Managing Editor Jared Anderson helped out with the Role of Media in Energy interactive breakout session in which students formulated blog posts about an important energy… Keep reading →
The good news – from a climate change perspective – is China appears to be taking steps to reduce its coal consumption, but the bad news is it’s much easier said than done. Industrialized nations have been slow to enact binding climate change mitigation strategies due to apprehension that carbon emissions from large developing nations… Keep reading →
The U.S. and 13 World Trade Organization members have committed to advance free trade of environmental goods to make green technologies more affordable. On January 24, 2014, the U.S. and 13 World Trade Organization (WTO) members – Australia, Canada, China, Costa Rica, the European Union, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore, Switzerland, and… Keep reading →
Many of the largest US pension fund managers gathered at the United Nations last week to discuss the risks and opportunities climate change poses to their investment portfolios. Institutional investment fund managers, like those in charge of pension resources, are in the difficult position of finding opportunities that provide returns needed to support beneficiaries for… Keep reading →
Washington’s relationship with Riyadh has always been focused on mutually-beneficial policies, while politely ignoring considerable societal differences. There have certainly been periods of ideological conflict, but the House of Saud and the Obama Administration currently find themselves very far apart on several important issues. And while leadership in Washington thus far appears relatively unconcerned –… Keep reading →
In a departure from the large-scale infrastructure proposals that dominate international development politics, a thinktank, Fuel Freedom Foundation, funded by tech entrepreneurs Joseph Hollander and Eyal Aronoff proposes smaller scale investments to leverage local fuel availability, although early models rely on numbers from developed economies. The UN Secretary General’s Sustainable Energy for All campaign and… Keep reading →
Despite its significant oil wealth, American companies have long shied away from doing business in Sudan, initially because of security concerns and later in response to U.S. sanctions against the government in Khartoum. The secession of South Sudan in July 2011, during which 80% of the country’s oil wealth went to the South, followed by… Keep reading →
The fatal Quebec oil train disaster looks likely to touch off yet another debate affecting the future of the Keystone XL pipeline – whether pipelines or rail are a safer way to transport oil. “People think rail is costless until something like this happens.” [Bloomberg] France’s Total and its Chief Executive Christophe de Margerie were… Keep reading →
A thirty member open working group charged with setting new development goals for the United Nations finished a round of meetings in New York this week, marking out initial progress on following up to the Rio+20 meetings last year and setting the groundwork for new standards that will impact the way the growing NGO sector performs its work.
“The General Assembly working group is mandated to submit a report, containing a proposal for sustainable development goals for consideration and appropriate action to the 68th Session of the General Assembly, which would start in September 2013,” the UN said in announcing the end of the meetings. “By late 2014,” General Assembly President Vuk Jeremic said, “member states should be in a position to promulgate the Sustainable Development Goals-the single most important element of the post-2015 agenda.” Keep reading →
It might at first glance look like a good omen that the EU has shown up at the current United Nations climate change conference in Doha, Qatar, with its carbon emission reduction goals for 2020 already met.
Eight years ahead of time, Europe’s emissions are below its longstanding goal of a 20% reduction by 2020 compared to a 1990 baseline. In theory, Europe is a clean energy model for other countries striving to achieve the Kyoto-set targets and begin to reign in global warming. Keep reading →
