In most developed countries, renewable energy siting has been plagued with delays, contract extensions, and “NIMBY” protests. Project developers and government planning agencies must be transparent and inclusive in their decision-making to gain public support and reduce the environmental and social negative spillover effects of energy expansion projects
Our current state of economic development has been built on burning carbon. To achieve the SDGs, or even just retain what we have, that link needs to be broken – ‘decoupled’. The decoupling process has started but will need to be total
Conversations on energy transition tend to focus on renewable generation or the end-user. However, too often, the complex systems that are required to connect the two are neglected. Relying on ‘the market’ to develop solutions risks being too slow and inequitable. Governments need to get their heads round the radical changes that must be made to create resilient, sustainable energy networks – it is down to governments to drive the energy transition forward
All 1.5°C global warming scenarios call for carbon removal. Natural systems provide the most readily available mechanisms, so how can these be boosted to the levels required?
In 2022 we should aspire to a Paris-style agreement on restoring biodiversity. Ambition alone, articulated in several published pledges, is not enough: governments must now commit to a strengthened Global Biodiversity Framework that compels them to take meaningful action
Plastic waste is at crisis point, causing untold harm to wildlife and poisoning food chains. A new plastics treaty could help turn the tide and avoid irreversible damage to species and ecosystems – countries must take bold action now
Restoring the ocean’s health is vital to achieving many of the SDGs, as humankind will need the ocean to provide more food, energy, and jobs. Perhaps less well understood – but critical for our survival – is the vital role a healthy ocean will play in SDG 13: tackling climate change
After nearly a century of believing that engineering solutions could conquer nature to make cities productive and efficient centers of socio-economic development, some urban planners now realize that nature is something to design with, not against. But how do we invite nature back in when cities have been built to keep nature out?
Environment
Human activity is destroying life on Earth on an unprecedented scale. We must urgently and radically re-evaluate nature in our economic thinking and actions, or risk our own species’ survival
All IPCC models to stay within the 1.5ºC limit call for net negative CO2
emissions. Fortunately, the technologies we require can be found in nature
