pollution

As the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) moves forward with standards to reduce power plant emissions—which are due to be finalized in June 2015—many states are wondering how they will comply. WRI’s fact sheet series, Power Sector Opportunities for Reducing Carbon Dioxide Emissions, examines the policies and pathways various states can use to cost-effectively meet or even exceed future power plant emissions standards. This post explores these opportunities in North Carolina. Read about additional analyses in this series.

International climate action took an encouraging step forward today. President Obama reached agreements with the G-20 and with China to phase down the use of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), potent greenhouse gases used in appliances like refrigerators and air conditioners.

As extreme weather events like wildfires, heat waves, downpours, and droughts continue to make headlines in the United States and around the world, many have wondered what their connection is to climate change. A new report sheds some light, firmly drawing correlations between several extreme weather events in 2012 and human-induced warming.

Being "thrifty" means spending one cent as if you have only half a cent. This is an old Chinese saying to warn people to handle affluence without forgetting about a potential crisis. Underlying this common sense is an ethic rooted in Chinese culture: wasting is bad.

President Xi Jinping has urged Chinese people to "build a thrifty society", because if we persist with our business-as-usual production and consumption pattern we would invite a resource and environmental crisis.

One "inconvenient truth" is that China uses about 20 percent of the total global energy to produce about 12 percent of the world GDP. The country's energy consumption per unit of GDP is 2.2 times that of the world average. A similar pattern is seen in the consumption of other resources such as steel, cement and other raw materials, as highlighted by State leaders and experts at the International Forum on Building Ecological Civilization hold in Guiyang, Guizhou province, last month. In doing so, the leaders indicated that huge amounts of energy could be saved in China by improving efficiency.

Selama beberapa hari terakhir ini, WRI telah melacak lokasi peringatan titik api yang terjadi di Sumatera. Dalam perkembangan terbaru ini, WRI menganalisis tren historis kebakaran hutan yang terjadi di Sumatera. Baca analisa sebelumnya.

Read this post in English here

Kebakaran terus terjadi di Indonesia, menyebarkan kabut asap yang menyiksa ke penjuru negeri dan juga Singapura serta Malaysia. Hasil riset terbaru dari World Resources Institute menunjukkan tren yang mengkhawatirkan terkait fenomena kebakaran hutan ini:

• Kebakaran yang terjadi saat ini tidak melampaui batas normal tren historis kebakaran hutan yang terjadi di wilayah Indonesia, namun hal ini mungkin berubah jika kobaran api terus membesar.

• Kebakaran saat ini adalah bagian dari krisis endemik kebakaran hutan, lahan dan pembersihan lahan yang telah berlangsung sejak lama di Indonesia. Aksi nyata dan tegas jelas dibutuhkan untuk mencegah memburuknya krisis ini.