Amid record-breaking climate impacts, the COP29 host nation needs to ramp up action for an ambitious outcome in Baku The post It’s time for Azerbaijan to shift gears on diplomacy ahead of COP29 appeared first on Climate Home News ..read more

António Guterres calls extreme heat "the new abnormal" as he urges countries to step up protection of vulnerable populations The post UN chief appeals for global action to tackle deadly extreme heat appeared first on Climate Home News ..read more

Lululemon is accused by environmental group of using "misleading" sustainability claims despite growing emissions The post Canada’s Olympics kit provider hit with greenwashing complaint in France appeared first on Climate Home News ..read more

As world leaders gathered in Dubai at the start of COP28 last December, the United Arab Emirates dropped a surprise headline-grabbing announcement. The host nation of the UN talks promised to put $30 billion into a new climate fund aimed at speeding up the energy transition and building climate resilience, especially in the Global South. ALTÉRRA was billed as the world’s largest private investment vehicle to “focus entirely on climate solutions”. COP28 President Sultan Al-Jaber hailed its launch as “a defining moment” for creating a new era of international climate finance. Yet four months lat ..read more

In the Scottish city of Aberdeen, a debate over the region’s energy transition away from fossil fuels is playing out over roughly one square mile of green space. In question is a proposed development called the Energy Transition Zone (ETZ), which is intended to bring in more renewable energy investments as the city tries to cut its dependence on the oil and gas industry that has defined it for half a century.  As the UK’s new Labour government promises not to issue any more oil and gas licences, the future of the sector is in doubt and the company behind the ETZ says it wants to “protect ..read more

Foteini Simic, 16 years old, and Petros Kalosakas, 18 years old, are high-school students and Greenpeace volunteers from Athens, Greece.   There are few moments in life that count forever. Choosing who (and if) to marry, becoming a parent, buying a house… Before all of these come the last years of the Greek Lykeio (senior high school) and the critical final exams held during the month of June. The grades one gets at the end of those three years give shape to all the life milestones to come.   This year’s exams – especially their final days, June 11-13 – were for sure m ..read more

Despite growing at an unprecedented rate last year, renewable energy sources are still not being deployed quickly enough to put the world on track to meet an international goal of tripling renewables by 2030, new data shows. At the COP28 climate summit in Dubai in 2023, nearly 200 countries committed to tripling global renewable energy capacity – measured as the maximum generating capacity of sources like wind, solar and hydro – by 2030, in an effort to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. According to figures published on Thursday by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA ..read more

Adrianna Hardaway is senior policy advisor for climate with humanitarian aid agency Mercy Corps. As the Loss and Damage Fund’s board meets this week, it is addressing key issues such as selecting a host country, how to disburse its financial resources, and lobbying for more funding from donors. However, the agenda currently doesn’t address the challenges communities in fragile contexts will face in accessing the fund. This oversight mirrors a recurring pattern in international climate talks, where the needs and realities of fragile and conflict-affected situations (FCS) often receive little to ..read more

Following years of violence surrounding one of Latin America’s largest wind energy projects, local residents in southern Oaxaca state are cautiously optimistic that Mexico’s incoming president understands their anger over what they call poor consultations and environmental damage. Claudia Sheinbaum will be sworn in as Mexico’s first female president on October 1 with a broad electoral mandate. Before entering politics, she was a scientist studying renewable energy, including the ongoing conflict over wind farms on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. The tensions have spawned deadly violence, and lawsu ..read more

South Africa’s energy transition is likely to accelerate after voters forced the ruling African National Congress (ANC) into a power-sharing arrangement for the first time, analysts say. On Sunday President Cyril Ramaphosa appointed ministers from his ANC party and the pro-business opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) to serve in his “government of national unity”. In one of the most significant changes, Ramaphosa took away pro-coal minister Gwede Mantashe’s control of the energy sector. Hilton Trollip, a Cape Town University energy researcher, told Climate Home that Mantashe had previously “pa ..read more