Paris to ban old and polluting cars
Commercial vehicles produced before 1997 won’t be allowed in the streets of Paris. The measure, which will come into force on 1 July, is intended to reduce air pollution in the French capital.
Norway will cut its greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2030
La “carbon neutrality” verrà raggiunta in Norvegia entro il 2030, ovvero venti anni prima rispetto a quanto previsto inizialmente.
Europe will be 70% renewable by 2040 (but it won’t be enough)
Bloomberg’s “New Energy Outlook 2016” confirms the advance of renewable energy. But it also explains that the road ahead is still steep and uphill.
Niger Delta, the oil spill clean-up has started. It will take 30 years
After decades of legal battles, the government of Nigeria announced the launch of a huge clean-up plan in the Niger Delta, which was once destroyed by oil drilling activities. It’s an unprecedented operation that will take 25 to 30 years to be completed and will have an estimated cost of a billion dollars. The victory comes 20 years
What could happen if we burn all the world’s fossil fuels
A Canadian study shows that if the world consumes all its reserves of oil, gas and coal, average temperatures would skyrocket.
Saudi Arabia fires Oil Minister, hiring a Minister of Energy instead
Saudi Arabia is taking big steps towards post-oil era. With an unexpected decision, King Salman fired Saudi oil minister Ali al Naimi, who had held the post since 1995. The long-serving oil minister had planned the kingdom’s energy strategies for decades but he has now been replaced by Khaled al Falih, chairman of the state oil
Supertankers stuck in an insane traffic jam at sea due to low oil prices
Oltre cento super-petroliere sono bloccate al largo dei porti di tutto il mondo. Con duecento milioni di barili a bordo.
Mercury poisoning of indigenous people plagues the Amazon. Illegal mining is the cause
Survival International, a global movement for tribal peoples’ rights, has denounced mercury poisoning in Latin America in a letter to the UN Special Rapporteur for Health. The organisation highlights Venezuela, Peru and Brazil as countries that don’t comply with procedures to monitor the effects of mining on the environment. Mercury contamination, which commonly follows illegal
Emma Thompson holds a bake-off fracking protest
A frack free bake off in a land for gas extraction: that’s how the Thompson sisters criticise the Government energy policy with Greenpeace UK.
The Alberta tar sands. Canada’s oil costs more than it makes
The Alberta tar sands hold much of Canada’s oil wealth: the region contains an estimated 1.7 trillion barrels of bitumen oil. The size of this reserve makes it the third largest oil deposit in the world after Venezuela and Saudi Arabia. Yet despite this, the cost of extraction now outweighs the profit made per barrel.