Climate Change

New congestion charge kicks out gas guzzlers

Posted by jamie — 13 February 2008 at 6:48pm - Comments

Traffic jam As reported in yesterday's news, London's congestion charge is being modified again to improve the capital's green credentials. From October, vehicles emitting the highest amounts of CO2 will have to pay £25 a day which gets a big thumbs-up, while the most efficient cars will get into central London free of charge.

Some commentators have pointed out that this effectively changes the purpose of the charge from reducing congestion to reducing pollution, and that's no bad thing. According to the World Resources Institute, road transport spews out around 10 per cent of global emissions (pdf), so providing incentives to move to more efficient models is going to do a lot to cut those exhaust fumes.

Welcome to The Weekly Geek: decentralised energy

Posted by bex — 13 February 2008 at 3:16pm - Comments

This CHP plant in Denmark is 95 per cent efficient

This combined heat and power plant in Denmark is up to 95 per cent efficient

To celebrate our launch of EfficienCity, we're starting a new, weekly column for all the closet energy geeks out there. Every week, we'll take an in-depth look at one of the technologies we feature in EfficienCity - tidal power, wave power, wind energy, combined heat and power, micro-hydro power, anaerobic digestion, biomass and the rest. We'll also be looking at issues like baseload and the regulatory context for decentralised energy.

So remember to check back each Wednesday and, if you have any suggestions for energy solutions to climate change you'd like to see us cover, just post a comment at the bottom of this page and we'll try to slot it in.

Kingsnorth, court cases and climate scientists - an update on our coal campaign

Posted by bex — 12 February 2008 at 11:09am - Comments

Greenpeace volunteers at the top of Kingsnorth's chimney

Jubilant climbers on top of the chimney at Kingsnorth power station in October

I've been so busy with the launch of EfficienCity (our blueprint for a climate-friendly town) that I haven't had a chance to update you on all the goings on in our coal campaign since we delivered our alternative energy speech at the government / industry shindig last Wednesday.

On Friday morning, listeners of Radio 4's Today programme heard a withering attack on the proposed new coal plant at Kingsnorth from top Nasa scientist (and the world's most eminent climate scientist) James Hansen. The plans for the UK's first new coal plant in 30 years were, he said, a "terrible idea" which “will destroy the efforts of millions of citizens to reduce their carbon emissions”.

Weekly green web: stuff, stuff and more stuff

Posted by jamie — 8 February 2008 at 5:13pm - Comments

If you're looking for some web-based wonders to inform, entertain or inspire, here's what's caught our collective eyes recently:

  • The Story of Stuff has been doing the rounds since before Christmas but Annie Leonard's occasionally breathless but totally brilliant film about resources, consumption and consumerism is worth mentioning again.According to Annie, natural resources in the developing world are seen as "our stuff that got on somebody else's land".
  • Another oldie-but-goodie is Breathing Earth, a global map that shows when someone is either born or dies, plus the CO2 emissions from each country. In real time. Be afraid, be very afraid.
  • It looks like video, but apparently this evocative climate change film is composed entirely of still images by Toronto Star photographer Lucas Oleniuk
  • So popular they had to get bigger servers, this video shows what happened when 200-plus people stopped moving in New York's Grand Central Station. It's not really green but it's really cool.

Visit EfficienCity, our spanking new, multimedia packed, climate friendly town

Posted by bex — 7 February 2008 at 2:15pm - Comments

EfficienCity - a climate friendly town

Visit EfficienCity, our climate friendly town

If a picture speaks a thousand words, a multimedia-packed, animation-filled interactive town must speak a million. Which is why we've launched EfficienCity - to explain exactly what decentralised energy is and how it works in practice (which can otherwise be a wordy business).

Kingsnorth - it's time for a public inquiry

Posted by jossc — 6 February 2008 at 5:42pm - Comments

Coal power? No thanks!

Following the disclosure last week that power-generating company Eon has been negotiating behind the scenes to get the government's backing to build the UK's first new coal-fired power station for 30 years, Greenpeace's lawyers have written to the energy minister, John Hutton, to insist that the government hold a public inquiry.

FT no longer on the QT about wind power

Posted by jamie — 6 February 2008 at 3:26pm - Comments

You wouldn't necessarily expect the Financial Times, that bible of the corporate world and the money markets, to be a champion of environmental causes but they've been upping the ante on renewable energy, specifically wind power.

This week, they've been publishing a series of articles and news reports on the UK wind farm industry and they've been particularly critical of how various government policies, which were put in place to encourage the development of renewable energy industries, are actually having the opposite effect. It has been scathing about the renewables obligation, a mechanism which has all of us paying extra on our energy bills to subsidise new projects such as wind farms.

An alternative speech on energy (and a quick Hello Goodbye)

Posted by bex — 6 February 2008 at 3:04pm - Comments

Conference organiser and climate campaigner meet

Climate campaigner talks to the coal conference organiser

Update: Now with video.


Well, it's all been going on at our barricade of the government / coal industry shindig. This morning, an interested - and vaguely familiar looking - passer-by stopped to have a chinwag with with the volunteers chained to the barricades. After a 10 minute chat about climate change, coal, and climate change's impacts on disease migration, the passer-by wished everyone luck and wandered off.

Heathrow consultation - have your say

Posted by jossc — 6 February 2008 at 12:31pm - Comments

There's still time to let the government know how you feel about BAA's plans to build a third runway at Heathrow Airport, but the consultation process end on the 27th February so time is running out. If you live in London you can make your voice heard at the public meetings listed below.

Make cars greener says ex-Shell boss

Posted by jamie — 6 February 2008 at 11:48am - Comments

As one fossil fuel giant sidelines its alternative energy projects and invests in even more damaging technologies such as tar sands, the former head of another multinational has made some startling demands vis a vis car efficiency. To all intents and purposes, Sir Mark Moody-Stuart- ex-chairmen of Shell - wants to see all gas guzzlers banned.

Expanding on a column he wrote for the BBC website, Sir Mark said that the EU should bring in a minimum standard of 35 miles per gallon (mpg). "Nobody needs a car that does 10-15mpg," he said. "We need very tough regulation saying that you can't drive or build something less than a certain standard. You would be allowed to drive an Aston Martin - but only if it did 50-60mpg."

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