On Wednesday, Google launched a suite of changes to many of its core products to help consumers make sustainable choices more easily. “Today, climate change is more than a threat,” Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google and parent company Alphabet, said in a prerecorded video during a virtual press event …
Read More »Time for China’s Belt and Road to Go Green
Chinese President Xi Jinping recently announced at the UN General Assembly that China “will not build new coal-fired power projects abroad.” Chinese banks have already swung into gear. Three days after Xi’s speech, the Bank of China declared it would no longer provide financing for new coal mining and power …
Read More »The Harsh Truth behind Europe’s Energy Crisis
Europe’s energy crunch is continuing, as gas storage volumes have shrunk to 10-year lows. A possible harsh winter could lead to severe energy shortages and possible shutdowns of large parts of the economy. While the main discussion is currently focused on the potential role of Russia in the energy crisis, …
Read More »Is Gazprom about to Lose Its Natural Gas Export Monopoly?
The long-awaited Nord Stream 2 (NS2) pipeline is arguably the world’s most contentious energy project. While its completion was uncertain for a long time, favorable political, economic, and environmental developments have worked in its favor. Recently, Gazprom, the owner and operator of the pipeline, announced its completion. However, legal challenges …
Read More »Europe Faces a Winter Energy Crisis Years in the Making
Europe is bracing for a tough winter as an energy crisis that’s been years in the making leaves the continent relying on the vagaries of the weather. Faced with surging gas and electricity prices, countries from the UK to Germany will need to count on mild temperatures to get through …
Read More »IEA Head Birol Named Among Top Influencers
Fatih Birol, the head of the International Energy Agency (IEA), has been named one of the most influential 100 persons of 2021 by Time, a political magazine based in New York City, United States. Birol, 63, who has been the executive director of the agency since 2015, is the only …
Read More »Major Oil Companies Need to Wind down Oil Production or Face Stranded Asset Risk
New oil and gas projects are incompatible with a future in which the world stays on track with its climate targets. Needless to say, that has enormous implications for the oil and gas industry. A new report quantifies what that would mean for individual companies. While the impact varies, the …
Read More »China’s Unorthodox Intervention in the Global Oil Market
Apparently, China has been the talk of the town for quite some time. While the entire yesteryear passed in a flurry of blame game over the pandemic, this year has been nothing short of a blessing for Xi’s regime. However, while China rapidly compensated for the drastic slump last year, …
Read More »Majority of Fossil Fuels Need to Stay Underground to Avert Climate Disaster
The vast majority of the world’s known fossil fuel reserves must be kept in the ground to have some hope of preventing the worst effects of the climate emergency, according to new research. The peer-reviewed study, published in the scientific journal Nature on Wednesday, found that 90% of coal must …
Read More »Green Hydrogen can Fuel the Low-Carbon World of the Future
Marking India’s 75th Independence Day last month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for energy independence by 2047, when independent India will celebrate its centenary, and announced a National Hydrogen Mission to make India a hub for green hydrogen production and export. India is not alone in having big ambitions when …
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