The prime minister-designate, Justin Trudeau, says he spoke with the US president, Barack Obama, on Tuesday and confirmed his election commitment to withdraw Canadian fighter jets from the coalition campaign against Isis. Trudeau also says he will be making a break from the environmental policies of his predecessor, Stephen Harper
Photograph: Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty
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Source: Guardian Environment
Labour party leader raises issue of steel imports as well as human rights record in meeting with Chinese president
The Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, has raised China’s human rights record and the impact of its imports on the UK steel industry at a meeting at Buckingham Palace with President Xi Jinping, which the party described as “cordial and constructive”.
A statement from Labour following Corbyn’s meeting stressed the good nature of the exchange, and praised “the remarkable Chinese achievements in poverty-reduction, lifting over 600 million people out of poverty”.
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Source: Guardian Environment
Endless energy from the sun looked like a long-term solution for running our homes. But now the state has pulled the plug on the subsidies that made panels affordable for many. What happens now?
Sit back, relax, and read this story with an untroubled conscience: it has been created on a laptop and mobile phone powered entirely by the rays of the sun. This feat would surely astound the most idealistic Greek philosopher or Victorian entrepreneur. It would confirm their wildest hopes for humanity’s progress. Perhaps they would be even more amazed that it was possible via a coalition of Chinese companies, British roofers and local councils. Oh, and government support, which is set to be abruptly withdrawn.
The power comes from 16 black Ja solar panels that were fitted to the roof of my home in August. Together, these panels, each the size of a coffee tabletop, have a capacity of 4kW, enough to meet the energy needs of an average family home. Today, a gloomy autumnal moment, they have generated 4.403kWh. It hardly sounds impressive – it’s enough power for a couple of loads of washing – but collectively it represents a revolution. Solar hasn’t changed my life, but it has shifted my perceptions. A little monitor on my desk tells me how much electricity I am generating. I’m acutely aware of the scarcity of energy, the rarity of unbroken sunshine and changing path of the sun. In August, rays hit my panels at 8.30am and an image of a green finger materialised on my monitor, urging me to switch on appliances. Now it doesn’t appear until 10.30am and so we delay putting on the washing machine. We have toddlers around the house all day, so solar suits us: we time the dishwasher for daylight hours and the TV tends to be on more during the day than at night. If I’m working from home, I charge laptops and phones around midday, too. Solar’s drawback is that most power is generated in daylight hours, when people tend to be at work, and there’s currently no affordable battery technology to store the energy you generate. But that energy is not wasted: it goes into the national grid, and solar owners are paid for what they produce.
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Source: Guardian Environment
Built-up areas around the UK coast have increased by more than 40%, but conservationists have saved the ‘most pristine’ areas, Patrick Barkham reports
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Source: Guardian Environment
We’ve managed perfectly well for centuries calling it ‘that bloody rain’. But now weather forecasters want to start personifying the weather
The naming of storms is a difficult matter, as TS Eliot might have said, if he hadn’t been so distracted by cats. Only last year scientists discovered that Americans failed to take storms seriously when the weather system was given a female name. The most lethal female-named hurricanes have notched up almost twice the death tolls of their male-named counterparts because, one presumes, too many Americans have assumed that lady-storms are just making a fuss about nothing and can safely be ignored until they go off in a huff.
Related: ID of the storm: Met Office invites public to name severe weather systems
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Source: Guardian Environment
Andrea Leadsom tells a committee of MPs that she remains open to the findings of a consultation into proposed cuts to renewable energy subsidies
Energy minister Andrea Leadsom has told MPs she remains “open-minded” about plans to slash subsidies for solar power in order to protect consumer bills, but told MPs on Tuesday that “very expensive” nuclear power stations were nonetheless “affordable for customers”.
Leadsom was questioned by MPs on the energy and climate change (ECC) select committee about proposed cuts to renewable energy subsidies that her predecessor has called “catastrophic”.
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Source: Guardian Environment
Diagnosis of man who worked on reactor buildings damaged in 2011 tsunami could hamper efforts to encourage people to return to the area
A 41-year old man has become the first worker at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant to be diagnosed with cancer that officials recognise as being linked to his work there after the March 2011 disaster.
The unnamed man, who was diagnosed with leukaemia in January 2014 after feeling unwell, spent a year working on reactor buildings that were badly damaged after a magnitude 9 earthquake triggered a tsunami that struck Fukushima and other parts of Japan’s north-east coast on 11 March 2011.
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Source: Guardian Environment
Member states report a 23% drop since 1990, but the pace is slowing and several countries have missed renewable and energy efficiency targets
Greenhouse gas emissions in Europe have plunged to the lowest level ever recorded after the EU’s member states reported an estimated 23% drop in emissions between 1990 and 2014.
The bloc has now overshot its target for 2020 of cutting emissions by one-fifth – at the same time that its economy grew by 46%, according to the EU’s climate chief, Miguel Arias Canete .
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Source: Guardian Environment
If we want to avoid an endless cycle of protest and corporate resistance, then campaigners need to aim for long-term collaboration with their foes
Imagine the scene: the chairman of Shell UK, Erik Bonino, sitting alongside Lee-Anne Barraclough, Shell’s VP of communications, over a Pret a Manger takeaway at Shell’s offices in London. They look out the window at the giant mechanical polar bear that’s been parked there since the morning, “I think we need to back out of the Arctic – this reputational damage is destroying us,” they bemoan, over the echoes of Emma Thompson shouting through a loudspeaker in the background.
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Source: Guardian Environment
Polls shows 65% of respondents think the scandal has been exaggerated, and 63% expect it to be forgotten in a year
Two-thirds of Germans say they still trust Volkswagen despite the emissions rigging scandal that has engulfed the carmaker, according to a survey.
Sixty-five percent of respondents in a poll conducted earlier this month thought the scandal had been exaggerated and that VW still built excellent cars, according to the management consultancy Prophet, which carried out the research.
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Source: Guardian Environment