Europe

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Spain, the world’s 15th largest economy and the fourth-largest in Europe, recently ran for 9 hours entirely on wind, solar and hydro. It is not the first time the renewables supplied all of the country’s domestic electricity needs on the peninsula, but it is the first time they did so […]

Geothermal

What can the West learn from Kenya about Geothermal Power?

Benjamin Wehrmann

Clean Energy Wire / ARD ( Clean Energy Wire ) – Kenya signaled its interest in becoming the first African nation in an international ‘climate club’ of countries agreeing on tighter climate action rules that was proposed by German chancellor Olaf Scholz. During a visit in early May by Scholz to the east African country, […]

China

Goodbye to the American Century: China India and the Emerging New World Order

Michael T. Klare

( Tomdispatch.com) – Not so long ago, political analysts were speaking of the “G-2” — that is, of a potential working alliance between the United States and China aimed at managing global problems for their mutual benefit. Such a collaborative twosome was seen as potentially even more powerful than the G-7 group of leading Western […]

European Union

The European Union is Struggling to Respond to Biden’s Subsidies for Green Energy

China Dialogue

By Anna Gumbau ( China Dialogue ) – After the economic crisis caused by Covid-19 and the energy crisis caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, European unity is being tested once again, this time by the US Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). When President Joe Biden signed the IRA into law in August 2022, European leaders […]

Climate Crisis

For First Time, Wind provided more Power than Fossil Gas for Britain, enough to Power 300 mn. Teslas

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – A new study commissioned by the UK private electric utility Drax and carried out by professors at Imperial College London has confirmed that in the first quarter of this year, wind turbines in Britain generated more electricity than did fossil gas plants. This is the first time the UK got […]

Climate Crisis

New wind turbine installations in Germany grow almost 50% in early 2023

Benjamin Wehrmann

Clean Energy Wire / Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung ( Clean Energy Wire ) – Germany installed 128 new wind turbines with a total capacity of 0.6 gigawatts (GW) between January and April 2023, an increase in the growth rate of 46 percent compared to the same period in the year before, according to figures by the […]

European Union

European Union cancels ‘Europe Day’ Diplomatic Reception to Avoid Extremist Racist Ben-Gvir, Israel’s Chosen Representative

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Le Monde reports that a European Union diplomatic delegation to Tel Aviv announced Monday that it was canceling the diplomatic reception for Europe Day there because the government of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu had selected far-right extremist Jewish Power leader Itamar Ben-Gvir to represent it. The site of the French […]

Climate Crisis

Sir Gawain and the Green King: What can Newly Crowned Charles III do to Combat the Climate Emergency?

Juan Cole

Revised Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – We can argue about the character of Charles’s philosophy of nature and whether it is conservative or not. I don’t really care about the origins of his concern for the dangers we face from the climate emergency. I’m just glad he takes this stance, unlike so many of his […]

Featured

King Charles III as Defender of all Faiths, including Islam

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Although King Charles III will, like his predecessors going back to Henry VIII, be styled “Defender of the Faith,” he intends the phrase to be understood in a pluralistic rather than exclusivist manner. Harriet Sherwood at The Guardian reports that before Charles takes the oath on Saturday, the Archbishop of […]