Rhein on Energy and Climate

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Iran is one of the world’s big polluters and C02 emitters. It consumes more gasoline per automobile than any other country except the USA. The reasons are simple: Car owners pay only 10 US cents for a litre of gasoline, less than in any other country. In the middle of the 1970s during the Iraq… » read more

Posted by Eberhard Rhein

China and USA account for one third of global green house gas emissions. The international community is therefore largely ineffective without these two giant emitter countries taking more effective action, and doing so without delay. The prospects do not look encouraging, despite a few hopeful signals sent out recently. The USA seems incapable of reducing… » read more

Posted by Eberhard Rhein

The member countries of the Mekong River Commission (MRC) and China met at Easter to discuss the dramatic consequences of the drought wave in South East Asia for the Mekong River. The mighty 4.400 km long Mekong River, which originates in the Tibetan heights and flows through the mountainous Yuhan Province, has reached its lowest… » read more

Posted by Eberhard Rhein

The discreet call last month by Nobuo Tanaka, the Director General of the International Energy Agency (IEA), upon China to join the organisation is overdue. The IEA has ceased to represent the major oil consuming countries, as it did when it was founded in 1973/74 as an autonomous OECD agency to meet the challenge of… » read more

Posted by Eberhard Rhein

The World Wild Life Fund deserves praise for having taken the initiative to organise once a year an “Earth Hour” to mobilise humanity on the issue of climate change. To that end, it has appealed to municipalities, businesses, universities and civil society organisations etc. to switch off the lights of public buildings and monuments from… » read more

Posted by Eberhard Rhein

During the last 150 years coal-fired power plants have been the major cause of climate change. That has not changed much despite the arrival of alternative energy power sources like wind nuclear, gas, hydropower and solar. Today, some 40 percent of global electricity is generated from coal-fired power plants. Coal fired power plants constitute a… » read more

Posted by Eberhard Rhein

By a large majority, the 175 contracting parties of CITES (“Convention on the international Trade in endangered Species”; have rejected a request by Monaco, backed by the USA and the EU, to put a temporary ban on the fishing of blue-fin Atlantic tuna. The stock of this increasingly expensive fish has declined by 75 percent… » read more

Posted by Eberhard Rhein