carbon pricing

Photovoltaics can wipe out 4.25 billion tons of carbon emissions every year this decade, according to the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Even so, the actions announced so far remain way short of what is needed, with capital flows to fossil fuels still greater than the cash directed toward combating climate change.

Clean energy trade group the Canadian Renewable Energy Association has told policymakers CA$8 billion worth of solar and wind projects will be needed each year to decarbonize the electricity supply by 2035 and remove net emissions by mid century.

Trade organization Solar Energy UK has called for the government to mandate that solar target in a co-ordinated rallying cry issued with two peers. One of them, the Nuclear Industry Association, is a membership body sure to raise hackles in some quarters of the energy transition movement.

With the nation among the world’s top ten greenhouse gas emitting states, energy analysts from three policy advisories have spelled out how Jakarta could hit net zero by mid century rather than 2070, as currently planned. However, the energy transition would require uncharacteristically long term thinking.

The oft-heard industry call for more supportive policy for renewables, this time in Africa, has prompted the European Commission to pledge to work with its continental counterpart on improving the clean energy regulatory environment.

First Solar has backed carbon pricing in comments submitted to the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. The company also co-founded a global policy institute to support carbon pricing as a “cost-effective, equitable and politically viable climate solution.”

Rio Tinto Chairman Simon Thompson is urging governments across the world to take “urgent” action on climate change despite the twin evils of Covid-19 and economic recession. The call comes amid criticism that Rio Tinto’s own emission reductions schemes are too weak.

More than a quarter of global electricity is generated from renewables, with solar the third largest source according to an annual overview drafted by global policy network REN21. Despite a year-on-year fall, solar accounted for the majority of generation capacity additions last year. But a lack of decarbonization policies across the heating, cooling and transport sectors puts a patchy energy transition in prospect.

Pope Francis held a closed door meeting at the Academy of Sciences with the CEOs of oil firms and investment firms to address climate change, with a group committing to support an “economically meaningful” carbon price.

Hello hydrogen! A number of factors are floating renewably powered hydrogen to the top of the agenda for worldwide energy ministers. Australia is among the countries most favourably placed to turn hydrogen hype into the biggest source of decarbonized energy the world has yet seen.