Cities are home to 55 per cent of the world’s population, all jammed together cheek-by-jowl. Little wonder, then, that cities are being hit hardest by COVID-19: an estimated 90 per cent of all reported cases have occurred in urban areas. But the same concentration of people also makes cities the …
The more the planet warms, the more cities are finding they need new ways to keep urban temperatures down and protect their residents. Heatwaves are already by far the deadliest weather-related disasters in Europe; 140,000 deaths associated with 83 heatwaves have been recorded since the beginning of this century. Today, …
Coordinated international action on energy-efficient, climate-friendly cooling could avoid as much as 460 billion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions – roughly equal to eight years of global emissions at 2018 levels – over the next four decades, according to the Cooling Emissions and Policy Synthesis Report from the United Nations …
Growth in renewable power has been impressive over the past five years. But too little is happening in heating, cooling and transport. Overall, global hunger for energy keeps increasing and eats up progress, according to REN21’s Renewables 2020 Global Status Report (GSR), released recently. The journey towards climate disaster continues, …
Over the past few weeks there have been many reports of localized air quality improvements as the world has locked down to combat the coronavirus pandemic. However, no one should think that the climate crisis is therefore over—far from it. The most recent data from the United States National Oceanic …
22 April is Earth Day. While the coronavirus (COVID-19) has been spreading around the world and dominating news headlines, thoughts and attention, the need to take climate action has remained as urgent as ever. By the end of 2020, global CO2 emissions need to have dropped by 7.6% and continue …
The European Environment Agency’s (EEA) data confirm large decreases in air pollutant concentrations — of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) concentrations in particular — largely due to reduced traffic and other activities, especially in major cities under lockdown measures. Reductions of around half have been seen in some locations. The EEA’s data …
