Renewable Energy is a term used to define energy sources other than fossil fuels – solar, wind, thermal, tidal, and others that regenerate and do not require the depletion of a finite resource.
Imagine the following scenario. The European Union (EU) robustly tightens its Emission Trading System (ETS) and the EU carbon price rises dramatically. Investors who are ‘long carbon’ become wealthy. EU carbon emissions plunge as EU energy-intensive carbon emitters, such as cement makers, are forced to adapt to higher operating costs. Imports of cement from China,…
The quantity of global carbon emissions, already at an unsustainable level, are continuing to rise despite modest steps to increase renewable energy use and electrify transport. This quandary is because most countries are not moving fast enough to implement climate policies. The United States in particular has been retreating from its commitments to decarbonize, although…
The magnitude and success of 21st Century international trade would have been impossible without containerization and the long-haul container ship. Intriguingly, the innovation emerged not so long ago: Malcolm McLean made inter-modal transport with standardized containers a reality in the mid-1950s. Today, approximately 90 percent of international trade transport is done by container ship. The…
Global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions increased 1.4% to 32.5 gigatonnes in 2017, a new and dubious record. According to environmental organizations such as the International Energy Agency (IEA), China continues to be the largest annual CO2 emitter, with the United States in second place (the United States is still the largest cumulative or historic CO2…
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Paris Agreement was signed in December 2015 to widespread acclaim. Although largely symbolic and non-enforceable, it begat optimism that governments would act to substantially decrease carbon pollution. The agreement focuses on voluntary pledges to reduce carbon pollution in order to limit global warming to a 2.0°…
2017 may be the year that cognizance of the global warming threat reached a tipping point. Powerful hurricanes inundated Houston, Florida, Puerto Rico, and other lands, causing painful losses in lives and treasure. In what some might have thought was an Orson Welles “The War of the Worlds” sci-fi redux, Hurricane Ophelia, the easternmost Atlantic…
