Despite evolving public awareness and alarm over climate change, subsidies for the production and consumption of fossil fuels remain a stubborn impediment to shifting the world’s energy matrix towards renewable sources.
The U.S. wind industry looks set to enter a period of uncertainty, with an important government subsidy expiring at the end of the month and no clear plan for lawmakers to work towards an extension.
“Be a climate-protection hero, not a climate victim” is the message energy experts from around the world are bringing to San Francisco Tuesday.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is urging national governments around the world to roll back or eliminate subsidies on petroleum-based energy sources, estimating that this alone could result in a 13-percent decline in global carbon dioxide emissions.
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, whose political career was fuelled by her stellar performance in the energy sector, is now faced with an ironic challenge: how to bring down the unusually high price of electricity predominantly generated by hydropower – the cheapest source – in this South American country of 196.6 million people.
Why is nuclear energy back on the table?
Climate change and the resulting need for low-carbon energy sources is driving the current interest in nuclear energy despite the industry's near universal legacy of staggering cost-overruns, technical difficulties and dependence on enormous government subsidies.
The world needs to overcome "the bizarre irony that rural areas, where food is grown, is home to cruel poverty and hunger," says Ismail Serageldin, former chair of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR).
India’s Tata Motors, makers of the ‘cheapest car ever made’, say they have received more than a million bookings for the first batch of cars said to roll out of its factory in a few months.
The world has turned a green corner toward a more sustainable future, with investments in clean energy outpacing fossil fuel power generation for the first time.
Despite the economic slow down, growing numbers of world leaders are calling for urgent action on climate change while many governments used their economic stimulus packages to increase subsidies to the fossil fuel industry.
Following training by the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, a hundred farmers in central Kenya, armed with an improved understanding of their local markets are commanding higher prices for their bananas.
More than 20 million hectares of farmland in Africa and Latin America are now in the hands of foreign governments and companies, a sign of a global "land grab" that got a boost from last year's food crisis.
Cash transfers are the new darlings of proponents of welfare programmes. Mexico, Brazil, Bangladesh, lately New York City, and about two dozen developing countries presently dole out money to poor families, usually with conditions attached, such as taking their children to school and health checkups.
The Lesotho government - battling against the challenges presented by an ever-growing population of orphans whose parents have succumbed to the AIDS pandemic - has embarked on an ambitious programme aimed at alleviating the suffering of these vulnerable children, in partnership with the European Union and UNICEF.
The Brazilian government announced it is overhauling the country's energy basket with more emphasis on renewable resources, while continuing to plan for future expansion of local production of traditional fossil fuels, like oil and gas.
Responding to years of complaints over the management of the Fertiliser Support Programme (FSP), the Zambian government has now proposed that the private sector takes over its running to reduce cases of corruption.
There was no mention of a special grant to tackle poverty in the Namibian national budget speech delivered on Mar. 19, much to the disappointment of campaigners for a Basic Income Grant (BIG) for all citizens.
The Nairobi-based International Livestock Research Institute estimates 250 million people in Africa - a quarter of the population - rely on livestock for their livelihoods, yet African governments invest almost nothing to support the sector.
In an attempt to mitigate rising food insecurity and malnutrition, the Zambian government and the World Food Programme (WFP) have started to hand out food vouchers to the country’s urban poor.