The pope has issued a stark warning over the urgent need to tackle “extraordinary climate change and an unprecedented destruction of ecosystems“ in an eagerly-awaited message on the environment. In the first papal encyclical Pope Francis has written, he said climate change was mostly down to human activity and policies were urgently needed to cut carbon emissions, such as by reducing fossil fuels and developing renewables.
An eagerly-awaited message from the Pope being formally published today is expected to warn of the urgent need to tackle “unprecedented” climate change and destruction of nature. The papal encyclical, a letter sent to 5,000 Catholic bishops worldwide, is being published in five languages, and Pope Francis has said the document is “addressed to everyone”, not just the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics. A leaked draft of the encyclical, which appeared on the website of Italian news magazine L’Espresso in Italian earlier this week, indicates the pontiff will use it to spell out the moral and scientific case for protecting the environment.
Thousands of people from snowboarders and surfers to bee keepers and nuns are set to converge on Parliament to urge their MPs to back strong action on climate change. The mass lobby is today calling on Parliament to support a global climate change deal which will end carbon pollution from fossil fuels by mid century and invest in warm homes, clean energy and sustainable transport. Politicians are also being urged to end polluting coal power in the UK by 2023, on the way to phasing carbon out of electricity supplies.
For an industry used to cautious, long-term evolution, the speed at which leaders of Europe's biggest oil and gas companies moved to take a joint stand in the climate debate speaks volumes.
The UK is to use its "world-leading" climate and adaptation expertise to help countries successfully tackle climate change, Energy Secretary Ed Davey said today. Launching the initiative at a round-table meeting of leading environmental organisations and UK Government officials in London, he said: "The UK is a global leader in tackling climate change and the major threat it poses to our prosperity and security.
The President of Mexico Enrique Peña Nieto arrived in Aberdeen today during a UK state visit to mark closer ties on energy issues and climate change. President Nieto was greeted in Aberdeen by Alistair Carmichael, the Secretary of State for Scotland, and escorted to the Aberdeen Town House. He was joined by energy minister Matthew Hancock and introduced to senior UK oil and gas representatives, including Shell and BP.
More than 150 investors including local authorities and the Church of England have filed a resolution calling on oil giant BP to assess and manage climate change risks. The shareholders, which include multibillion-pound pension funds, investors and insurers, have already filed an identical resolution to Shell. They are calling on the oil companies to transparently “stress-test” their business model against the commitment made by governments not to let global temperatures rise more than 2C above pre-industrial levels - the threshold above which “dangerous” climate change is expected.
The UK government today called for a global climate deal.
World leaders gathered in Samoa for the Small Island Developing States Summit were greeted with an unexpected photo message.
The UK Government has given the go-ahead for hydraulic fracturing for shale gas to resume after moves by Cuadrilla to exploit the unconventional gas in Lancashire was put on hold 18 months ago when the process caused two small earthquakes.
Shifting our reliance on conventional power-stations towards renewable energy is a win-win situation as far as the Scottish Government is concerned.
Antrim Energy said today it had secured development field plan approval from the department of energy and climate change for its Fionn development plan in the UK North Sea.
The chief executive of environmental group Friends of the Earth Scotland has claimed it is "completely premature" to begin assessing the damage caused by gas leaking from the Elgin platform.
A senior MP has said lessons must be learned from the gas leak at a North Sea platform.
A renewable energy programme for Malawi is to receive funding of £1.7million from the Scottish Government.
MPs have launched an inquiry into what the UK Government can do to protect the Arctic from over-exploitation, as the retreating ice opens the region up for oil and gas drilling.
CO2 is now a major headache and headlines are full of stories about how to capture and store the gas. Carbon capture is considered by UK policymakers to be the way ahead.
THE Technical and Legal Guides to the International Oil and Gas Industry is an incredibly dry title, and one could be forgiven for believing that the contents of such publications would be as dry, especially since they were born in a lawyer's office.
The debate surrounding the environmental impact of unconventional gas production (including shale gas) in the UK is gaining strength, as DECC's (Department of Energy and Climate Change) 14th Landward Licensing Round approaches.
My father was a senior manager and engineer in the nationalised electricity industry.
Environmentalists have called for an end to campaigns designed to slow action on global warming, after it emerged oil giant Exxon Mobil was still funding "climate sceptic" organisations.
Here we are again. Only a few more shopping days to go before Christmas and, as usual, I still can't make up my mind as to what presents I want or, indeed, what I'm going to buy for everyone else.
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) is holding a major conference on climate change and global warming in Copenhagen on December 7-18 that up to 20,000 people are expected to attend.
Wave and tidal developers were invited yesterday to bid for £22million of new UK Government funding aimed at speeding up the development of marine energy.
THE UK is the European hotbed of investment and innovation in low-carbon technologies, attracting 41% of the total venture-capital and private-equity investment in low-carbon small and medium-sized enterprises in the EU, according to a new report.