Top news and views about Environment and Cleantech for 5 Apr 2017
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California and Scotland join forces to fight climate change
The Government of California and the Scottish Government have signed a joint agreement which sees them commit to work with one another to fight climate change.
The agreement was signed on Monday by Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and the Governor of California Edmund G Brown.
Among other things, the memorandum of understanding states both California and Scotland are looking to "capitalise on the huge potential of the Under2 MoU, the ambitious commitment to bold and decisive climate action covering over one billion people and over a third of the global economy to which both jurisdictions are signatories."
Signatories to the Under2 MoU agreement have committed to either cut greenhouse gas emissions by 80 to 95 percent below 1990 levels or to limit emissions to less than two metric tons per capita by mid-century.
Full story at http://cnb.cx/2nBcZYY
EPA head Scott Pruitt may have broken integrity rules by denying global warming
Well, this is a new one.
Scott Pruitt, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), is under investigation by his own agency for misstating the basic scientific consensus on human-caused global warming.
Turns out that providing misguiding scientific information to the public isn't a cool thing to do, after all — even in the Trump administration.
EPA administrator Scott Pruitt is fast becoming one of the most controversial of President Donald Trump's cabinet picks. He is leading the push to unravel the Obama administration's landmark climate change policies while overseeing a historic downsizing of the agency he runs.
Full story at http://on.mash.to/2nBsTT2
IBM Plans to Use Blockchain to Clean up China’s Air
China is synonymous with gray skies but pollution is not just a Chinese problem, it is something that is permeating the skies of the world and choking the major cities of the planet.
However, as the media focuses on China as the country makes rapid strides towards development, pollution and environmental issues often have to take a backseat.
Now IBM has come up with a Blockchain-based ‘green asset management platform’ that will help businesses in China reduce their emissions. The platform is based on the open source and openly governed Hyperledger Fabric.
Full story at http://bit.ly/2nBuM22
Six Finnish companies are listed as climate leaders by CDP
Six Finnish companies have been listed as world leaders for their actions and strategies in response to climate change in the prestigious Climate A List by CDP. CDP is an international not-for-profit organization that drives sustainable economies.
Climate A List identifies KONE, Neste, UPM, Valmet, Metsä Board and Stora Enso as leaders in their efforts and actions to combat climate change, during the past CDP reporting year. The Climate A List constitutes the baseline for corporate climate action and includes companies identified as leaders in the transition towards a low-carbon economy.
"We congratulate the 193 A List companies that are leading the charge towards our low carbon future. Companies are key actors in enabling the global economy to achieve its new climate goals, and the leadership of this group points the way for others to take bold action and capitalize on the many opportunities that await," says CDP's chief executive officer Paul Simpson.
CDP is an international, not-for-profit organization providing the only global system for companies and cities to measure, disclose, manage and share vital environmental information. CDP works with market forces, including 827 institutional investors with assets of USD 100 trillion, to motivate companies to disclose their impacts on the environment and natural resources and take action to reduce them.
Full story at http://bit.ly/2nBuJn1
Tech's biggest players tackle climate change despite rollbacks
Some of America's biggest tech companies say they're still committed to battling climate change, Bloomberg reports, two days after President Trump signed a sweeping executive order that rolls back many Obama-era climate policies. Not only will it be good for the environment, they say, it will be good for their bottom line.
Apple, Amazon, Google and Microsoft are some of the 154 companies that agreed to embrace clean energy during the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris. The American Business Act on Climate Pledgeset ambitious, concrete goals like reducing emissions by 50 percent and water usage by 80 percent, achieving zero waste-to-landfill and purchasing 100 percent renewable energy.
"We believe that strong clean energy and climate policies, like the Clean Power Plan, can make renewable energy supplies more robust and address the serious threat of climate change while also supporting American competitiveness, innovation, and job growth," the companies said in a joint statement.
But, President Trump's executive order targets those environmentally friendly policies. Under the order, the current administration can rewrite carbon emission rules for new and existing power plants, and it won't have to consider how federal actions might impact climate change when conducting National Environmental Policy Act reviews. The order will also restart the federal coal leasing program, which allows energy companies to buy the rights to mine on federal lands.
Full story at http://engt.co/2nBuGYn
The curious disappearance of climate change, from Brexit to Berlin
The word climate does not appear once in the letter triggering the UK’s departure from Europe. Despite the world experiencing a second, successive, record annual rise in carbon dioxide concentrations, on one level the omission is hardly surprising.
When the environment minister, George Eustice, revealed that the government had commissioned no research at all on the likely impact of Brexit on environmental policy it reflected how low green issues had fallen on the political agenda. Just how far is revealed by the fact that more than 1,100 EU environmental safeguards will need translating into UK law.
Running very fast to stand still on climate change in the UK will be the best we can hope for. Up to 13 various bills need to be passed just to allow Brexit to happen, squeezing almost everything else out of Parliament’s agenda. Closing the vast gap between current climate plans and meeting the new international targets agreed in Paris in December 2015 has as much chance as a snowflake in a Westminster canteen kettle.
Full story at http://bit.ly/2nYzWJ7
Prepared by @SydesJokes
Original post from: http://CrowdifyClub.com/SydesJokes