Posts tagged with 'energy'
Countries Have Been Overlooking Their Biggest Climate Allies: Local and Regional Governments
Countries Have Been Overlooking Their Biggest Climate Allies: Local and Regional Governments
Cities are home to more than half the world’s population: 4.4 billion people commuting, working, eating, shopping, and using light, heat and air conditioning. As a result, cities collectively produce over 70% of the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions warming the planet. They ...
To Meet 2030 Targets, Cities Need Systems Change
To Meet 2030 Targets, Cities Need Systems Change
Cities are not just places where people live—they are interconnected networks of people, services and economic activity. A city is a system of systems, bringing together transportation, energy, buildings, water, waste management and more. Transforming these interconnected systems is vital ...
What Would Cities Look Like With 3 Degrees C of Warming vs. 1.5? Far More Hazardous and Vastly Unequal
What Would Cities Look Like With 3 Degrees C of Warming vs. 1.5? Far More Hazardous and Vastly Unequal
The world recently experienced a 13-month streak of record-breaking global temperatures. And as blistering heat waves punish communities across several continents, 2024 is on track to be the hottest year on record. Global average temperatures are now perilously close to exceeding 1.5 ...
Building for People: Towards an Equitable Transition in the Built Environment
Building for People: Towards an Equitable Transition in the Built Environment
The built environment is not on track globally to achieve its sectoral climate targets. Accounting for over a third of total energy system emissions already, the continued use of carbon-intensive materials paired with inefficient energy use throughout the built environment ...
Lessons from China’s Growing Adoption of Zero-Emission Trucks
Lessons from China’s Growing Adoption of Zero-Emission Trucks
Getting more zero-emission trucks on the road is an important transportation shift that is needed to reduce air pollution, protect public health and curb climate-harming emissions. But transforming the entire trucking industry is a challenging feat that will require the ...
Better Buildings Are Taking on the Climate Challenge 
Better Buildings Are Taking on the Climate Challenge 
In March 2024, the inaugural Buildings and Climate Global Forum convened more than 1,000 participants to spur action towards built environment decarbonization and resilience. The first-of-its-kind forum was welcome, as the sector needs a shakeup.   The big issue on the table was ...
The Impacts of El Niño Go Far Beyond Water
The Impacts of El Niño Go Far Beyond Water
Over the past several months, the climate pattern El Niño has disrupted different regions and sectors across the world. Zimbabwe recently declared a state of disaster, due largely to El Niño-induced drought. The city government in Bogotá, Colombia, announced water rationing as reservoir levels ...
How Improved Housing in Under-Served Communities Can Strengthen Climate Resilience
How Improved Housing in Under-Served Communities Can Strengthen Climate Resilience
In the crowded slums of Zambia, Africa, members of the Zambia Youth Federation, a social movement of the urban poor, conducted climate change research and presented it in an emotional spoken word poem. Their message let policymakers know how climate ...
E-Buses: Operational Tests and Customer Surveys Facilitate Transition and Highlight Benefits
E-Buses: Operational Tests and Customer Surveys Facilitate Transition and Highlight Benefits
The adoption of any new technology involves some degree of adaptation, and battery electric buses (e-buses) are no exception. After decades of experience with diesel vehicles, cities and operators need to understand the technical and operational specifications of e-buses to ...
4 Climate Stories That Will Define 2024
4 Climate Stories That Will Define 2024
Last year shattered global heat records. The world witnessed the effects of rising temperatures in the form of devastating wildfires, severe flooding, extreme heatwaves and more. Poor countries and communities who have contributed the least to causing the climate crisis ...
Unpacking COP28: Key Outcomes from the Dubai Climate Talks, and What Comes Next
Unpacking COP28: Key Outcomes from the Dubai Climate Talks, and What Comes Next
The COP28 climate talks began with a new fund to address the increasingly severe losses and damage vulnerable countries face from climate impacts and concluded with the first international agreement to tackle climate change’s main driver: fossil fuels. Those bookends to the Dubai summit ...
Southeast Asian Cities Have Some of the Most Polluted Air in the World. El Niño Is Making it Worse
Southeast Asian Cities Have Some of the Most Polluted Air in the World. El Niño Is Making it Worse
Residents of Jakarta, Indonesia woke up on August 31, 2023, to a thick blanket of haze and news that their city was again ranked the most polluted in the world — one of many times during the last several months when air quality became ...
Lessons From the Global South's Public-Private Climate Collaborations
Lessons From the Global South’s Public-Private Climate Collaborations
As dense hubs of diverse talent, skills and innovation, cities are perfect places for public-private collaboration. In light of urgent calls from the international community for solutions, the wealth of creativity and expertise on urban sustainability in Global South cities can ...
How the US Can Electrify Its Public Fleets, from City Buses to Garbage Trucks
How the US Can Electrify Its Public Fleets, from City Buses to Garbage Trucks
Public vehicle fleets, which include everything from city buses and school buses to garbage trucks and law enforcement vehicles, make up a significant share of traffic on U.S. roads. There are 645,000 vehicles in the federal fleet, 500,000 in state fleets across the ...
Developing City Action Plans for Building Decarbonization
Developing City Action Plans for Building Decarbonization
City officials tasked with reducing and eliminating greenhouse gas emissions from their communities face a tricky task in estimating building emissions as they work to prevent the most harmful impacts of climate change. The biggest challenge is that there isn’t consensus ...
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