Energy from Renewables..

The following are some of the highlights of what i have been reading lately on global warming :

• In November 2016, the Arctic was already experiencing extraordinary anomalies. Temperatures were 20C above normal.

• “The consequences of failing to keep the temperature below 1.5 C will be to wilfully condemn hundreds of millions of the poorest citizens of Earth to certain deaths from the severe impacts of climate change.”

I started looking for some of the ways forward for countries to bring down Co2 emissions.. there are dozens of ways, and among them are :

• Retrofitting existing buildings can save 70-90% of the energy used to heat and cool them. Such a move also tackles fuel poverty, creates local jobs and reduces deaths from cold. 

• Switching transport from fossil fuels to electricity powered by renewables, cuts emissions but also removes the air pollution that is responsible for an epidemic of lethal respiratory disease. In Europe alone, about half a million people suffer premature deaths each year due to air pollution.

• In 2015, Denmark generated 140 percent of its electricity requirements on one particularly windy day from wind turbines alone, the excess of which was exported to Germany, Norway and Sweden. In 2016, Germany came remarkably close to being completely run by clean energy for a day due to a surge in wind and solar power. 

• That same month, Portugal was powered solely by renewable sources for 107 hours, which is roughly four-and-a-half days, setting the bar higher. 

• But the Central American nation of Costa Rica beat all the European countries with its landmark achievement in green energy in 2016. For more than 250 days the country used zero fossil fuels and drew its electricity from hydropower plants, wind turbines and geothermal installations. Thanks to such efforts, the notion that renewables can run a whole country is no longer unfathomable. In fact, it is now an ideal to aspire to.

• In November 2016, many, mostly low-income countries, from Bangladesh to Tanzania and Guatemala, committed to switching entirely to renewable energy by 2030-50 at the latest. China is installing more new wind energy capacity in a single year than the UK has in total.