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by Estelle EMONET Agence France-Presse GARDANNE, France (AFP) – The Gardanne smokestack is the highest in France at 295 metres (975 feet) but the mood at the power station beneath the once-proud chimney has reached an all-time low. Gardanne is one of the last remaining French coal-fired stations. Ever since the government announced the closure of its coal plants three years ago to help meet climate goals, anger and despair has spread across this community of […]
by Moises AVILA Agence France-Presse Elieser Rodriguez emerges blackened from the thick smoke of burning pyres slowly transforming the limbs of mangroves into charcoal — a livelihood much maligned by environmental and climate campaigners in Panama. He says he has no other choice for a living. “This is the daily survival of my family, of my children, of my wife,” Rodriguez told AFP in El Espave, a town about 80 kilometers (50 miles) southwest of Panama […]
BEIJING, China (AFP) – China is targeting an ambitious clean energy goal of reducing fossil fuel use to under 20 percent by 2060, according to an official plan published by state media on Sunday. The cabinet document follows a pledge by President Xi Jinping to wean the world’s biggest polluter off coal, with a target of peaking carbon emissions by 2030 and achieving carbon neutrality 30 years later. But the country has been criticised for pushing […]
by Khaliun Bayartsogt Agence France-Presse TSAGAAN KHAD, Mongolia (AFP) – Snaking across the barren Mongolian desert, a convoy crawls along the once-busy highway to the Chinese border — its truckers desperate to finally deliver their cargo of coal after months of brutal Covid-19 delays and no pay. Pre-pandemic, the route was packed with drivers delivering the vital fuel to China — the world’s biggest coal importer — currently grappling with widespread power cuts threatening its […]
SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) – Australia-based mining giant Rio Tinto on Wednesday announced plans to cut direct carbon emissions 50 percent by 2030, ramping up previous targets as the firm tries to green its highly polluting operations. Rio Tinto said it would spend around $7.5 billion from now until the end of the decade to cut so-called scope one and two emissions — from mining operations and power consumption. “Governments are setting more ambitious targets and […]
by Patrick GALEY Agence France-Presse PARIS, France (AFP) – The world’s nations are currently planning to produce more than double the amount of coal, oil and gas consistent with limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, the United Nations said Wednesday. Ten days before a climate summit that is being billed as key to the viability of the Paris Agreement temperature goals, the UN’s Environment Programme said that government fossil fuel production plans this decade […]
by with Sam Reeves in Kuala Lumpur / Haeril Halim Agence France-Presse CILEGON, Indonesia (AFP) – Smokestacks belch noxious fumes into the air from a massive coal-fired power plant on the Indonesian coast, a stark illustration of Asia’s addiction to the fossil fuel which is threatening climate targets. Asia-Pacific accounts for about three-quarters of global coal consumption — even as the region struggles with the environmental and public health impacts of global warming, from deadly […]
by Olivier DEVOS Agence France-Presse Dawdon coalmine in northeast England was abandoned three decades ago, but is being brought back to life as the unlikely setting for a green energy revolution. The carbon-intensive colliery, near the town of Seaham on the windswept northeast English coast, hauled coal from deep underground until its closure in 1991. Dawdon has long since flooded with water because part of the mine is below sea level, and is heated by […]
SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) – Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, under pressure to adopt a 2050 net-zero carbon emissions target, said in an interview published Monday that he may not join this year’s landmark UN climate summit in Glasgow. The world’s biggest coal exporter by value, and still reliant on fossil fuels for most of its electricity, Australia has not made a firm commitment on its own greenhouse gas reductions. Morrison has vowed to mine and […]
LONDON, United Kingdom (AFP) – Britain, which faces soaring natural gas prices, has been forced to run coal-fired power stations in order to secure energy supplies, electricity generation company Drax said on Thursday. The country is particularly exposed to Europe’s ongoing energy crisis due to its reliance on natural gas to generate electricity. The price of European gas futures has more than doubled since May. “These facilities have fulfilled a critical role in keeping the […]
by Yann SCHREIBER with Pauline CURTET in Garmisch-Partenkirchen Agence France-Presse MONCHENGLADBACH, Germany (AFP) – Dressed in a rainbow-coloured unicorn costume, Kathrin Henneberger once camped on a beech tree, trying to save a forest from destruction. Come Monday, she hopes to be one of Germany’s newly elected MPs. The 34-year-old counts among one of Germany’s most prominent climate militants standing in Sunday’s general elections for a seat in parliament. After years of occupying coal mines or […]
UNITED NATIONS, United States (AFP) – The United States and Britain on Wednesday welcomed China’s promise to end funding for coal projects overseas, but voiced hope the world’s largest emitter would also do more at home on climate change. President Xi Jinping told the UN General Assembly on Tuesday that China will stop backing coal overseas, all but drying up the world’s foreign assistance to the dirty form of energy in developing countries after similar […]
