BRI, BRICS, & Global South~

The Third Pole is a region in Central Asia with the world’s third-largest store of ice after Antarctica and Greenland that is roughly the size of the US states of Texas and New Mexico combined. Third Pole glaciers are one of the world’s largest freshwater sources, and vital to billions of people from Vietnam to Afghanistan. Asia’s 10 largest rivers, including the Yangtze, Yellow, Mekong and Ganges, are fed by […]

A fact’s a fact … Cumulative CO2 emissions by Western countries are 5 times those of China China’s cumulative CO2 emissions = 220 billion tonnes (13% of world total cumulative emissions) West’s cumulative CO2 emissions = 1148 billion tonnes (70% of world total cumulative emissions) United States cumulative CO2 emissions = 400 billion tonnes (25% of world total cumulative emissions) US contribution to cumulative CO2 emissions is more than any other country […]

A fact’s a fact … The West per capita produces double the CO2 of China Each Chinese citizen produces 6.86 tonnes of CO2 per year. Each citizen in the Western industrialized countries produces 12.1 tonnes per year on average. Canada, USA, & Australia are the worst at 15.59 t; 16.16 t; 16.88 t each ** The West includes: USA, European Union, Non-EU Europe, United Kingdom, Japan, South Korea, Canada, and Australia.

“Treating ‘humans’ as a single, monolithic whole, ignores the fact that the Great Acceleration has, until very recently, been almost entirely been driven by a small fraction of the human population, those in developed countries.” “The most striking insight is that most of the population growth has been in the non-OECD world but the world’s economy (GDP) is still strongly dominated by the OECD world. Despite the shift of global […]

On August 9, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a special report. It emphasizes that without “immediate, rapid, and large-scale” reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, it will be impossible to contain global warming and avoid frequent and severe climate events in the coming decades. Many laments the enormous costs of achieving zero carbon emissions, which the Energy Transition Commission estimates to be between $1 trillion and $2 trillion […]

The U.N. climate panel’s new report sounded a dire warning, saying the world is dangerously close to runaway warming – and that humans are “unequivocally” to blame.  The landmark report on climate change was released on Monday by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the United Nations expert body for assessing the science related to climate change. Unless immediate, rapid and large-scale action is taken to reduce emissions, the […]

Canadian companies have the greatest share of foreign investment in Amazon energy and mining projects while companies headquartered in China control scarcely 10% across the hydropower and extractives sectors, according to new data published by US think-tank the Inter-American Dialogue. China is the biggest foreign investor in renewable hydro–electricity power in the Amazon but Canadian companies have the most shares across environmentally risky sectors, new data shows. “I don’t think anyone knew […]

Since the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) was proposed in 2013, China has invested and constructed more than 80 hydropower projects globally across six continents. While helping different regions raise standards of living and stimulate their economies, these projects also demonstrate the concept of “green development” in their design, construction and operation procedures. In addition to obeying local rules and green development guidelines under the BRI framework, Chinese companies have […]