Climate & Energy

How does Denmark plan to transition to 100 percent renewable energy by 2050 -- and how does it already get almost half of its electricity from renewables? Stephanie Joyce, a 2015 Energy and Climate Media Fellow for Heinrich Böll North America, has an answer in part three and the final installment of her series from Bornholm, Denmark.

Part two of a series by Stephanie Joyce, another 2015 Energy and Climate Media Fellow for Heinrich Böll North America, in Bornholm, Denmark - or as she puts it, "a real-life test lab for the grid of the future." Listen and read more at Inside Energy:

As conventional oil reserves decline, international oil companies are increasingly turning their attention towards unconventional oils. Armsfree Ajanaku travelled to Ondo state communities situated along the bitumen belt of Nigeria to try and understand the people’s perception about the bitumen under their feet and their aspiration for development. He describes his experience in an article published through our partner office in Nigeria.

Making mitigation finance more gender-responsive, requires addressing inherent biases toward large scale projects and a primary focus on the cost-effectiveness of emissions reductions over the realization of multiple, including non-carbon benefits in mitigation projects and programs, argues Liane Schalatek in a Bonn SBI 42 in-session workshop.

How can we change the patterns of growth away from growing at the expense of ecosystems to a new paradigm based on growth with nature? Our Co-President, Ralf Fuecks delves into the issue with his newly published book, Green Growth, Smart Growth – A New Approach to Economics, Innovation and the Environment. We spoke with him during his U.S. speaking tour in April 2015.

This week The Heinrich Böll Foundation is hosting a delegation of U.S. state legislators on the EU Low Carbon Economy Tour 2015.

Germany’s energy transition – or Energiewende – has created a global market for renewable energies, such as wind and solar, by promoting the rapid build-up of these technologies through a stable policy framework. As a result, the cost of both wind and solar has dramatically decreased over the past few years. This is now enabling other countries to follow suit, in particular the United States.

The Green Climate Fund, striving to be fully operational by the Paris climate summit in December, missed its "effectiveness date" at the end of April, an important deadline giving the Fund the authority to begin making funding commitments. This analysis provides a status update on what the Fund needs to not only "open for business" soon, but also move lastingly beyond "business as usual."

Healthy soils are crucial to human nutrition and the fight against hunger. But worldwide 24 billion tons of fertile soil is lost annually. Barbara Unmüßig calls attention to the growing threat to one of Earth’s most important resources.

People have been fantasizing about hydrogen cars forever. It was the car of the future before the Prius and the Tesla were the car of the future. TECN Media Fellow Peter Thomson reports from Berlin on the development of hydrogen-power cars in Germany.