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What is needed to make the Paris Agreement a success? This blog post focuses on one of the most central but underappreciated elements – the periodic reviews of progress. States must of course make ambitious and credible contributions in the first place. But if there is no system to ensure that they are monitored and […]
In the three years since its foundation, the Green Investment Bank (GIB) has made waves in the green investment scene in the United Kingdom (UK). But rather than resting on its laurels the UK government needs to realise the work of GIB has not gone far enough, that the level of green investment in the […]
A quick glance at the many issues on the table of the international climate negotiations points to the myriad facets of our everyday lives that are intertwined with the climate change problem. Whether it is how we produce our food, our energy, our means of transport, or how we manage financial flows, technology transfer or […]
More and more academics and institutions are discussing how to address climate change in their own activities. Our own institution, the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, has recently drafted a Travel Strategy, and an accompanying Working paper (‘Towards a Culture of Low-Carbon Research for the 21st Century’) to reduce our collective travel impact on […]
Last week’s announcement from Drax (the energy company that owns and operates the largest power station in the UK) that it would no longer invest in Carbon Capture & Storage (CCS) development at its Selby plant came as little surprise. The news joins a litany of other stumbling blocks that CCS has suffered on its […]
Since 2010, the European responses to the global financial and economic crises have been dominated by a narrative of austerity. European governments have sought to bolster confidence in their economies by rolling back public spending. Austerity may pose an existential crisis for the European Union (EU), both regarding austerity-hit states being forced to leave the […]
‘2°C is an objective,’ EU Climate and Energy Commissioner Miguel Arias Cañete said in February 2015, when questioned over the status of the widely recognised target for preventing ‘dangerous’ global warming[1] at this December’s Paris UN climate conference. ‘If we have an ongoing process you cannot say it is a failure if the mitigation commitments […]
The combined effects of the financial and economic crisis starting in 2008 and the fiasco of the 2009 Copenhagen climate negotiation have led to a gradual re-framing of climate change from an environmental to an energy issue. As I detail below, this re-framing has happened in subtle, and not-so-subtle ways, from changes in political rhetoric […]
Recent data from the Global Carbon Project show that worldwide carbon dioxide emissions—the main driver of climate change—are set to reach a record-breaking 40 billion tones in 2014, led by a 2.5% rise in fossil fuel burning. In order to maintain a 66% chance of keeping global warming below 2 degrees—a widely accepted safety threshold—global […]
Making the case that the United Kingdom (UK) needs the European Union (EU) and vice versa is at the forefront of current electoral debates in the UK. During a passionate electoral hustings event at the University of East Anglia last night, candidates clashed over visions for a federal European Union (Andrew Duff, MEP, Lib Dem), […]
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