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April 25 News: We Must Deploy Clean Energy Quickly ‘To Avert Potentially Disastrous Consequences’ Warns IEA

Governments are falling badly behind on low-carbon energy, putting carbon reduction targets out of reach and pushing the world to the brink of catastrophic climate change, the world’s leading independent energy authority will warn on Wednesday. “The world’s energy system is being pushed to breaking point,” Maria van der Hoeven, executive director of the International Energy Agency, writes in today’s Guardian. “Our addiction to fossil fuels grows stronger each year. Many clean energy technologies are available but they are not being deployed quickly enough to avert potentially disastrous consequences.” [Guardian]

Van der Hoeven said: “The current state of affairs is unacceptable precisely because we have a responsibility and a golden opportunity to act. Energy-related CO2 emissions are at historic highs, and under current policies, we estimate that energy use and CO2 emissions would increase by a third by 2020, and almost double by 2050. This would be likely to send global temperatures at least 6C [11F] higher within this century.”

See also IEA: We’re Headed Toward 11°F Global Warming and “Delaying Action Is a False Economy”

Speaking during an automotive conference in Detroit on Tuesday, Jeff Immelt — whose company is a key supplier to automakers producing electric cars — said GE is “committed to long-term development” of alternative-fuel vehicles. The executive shrugged off the perception that electric cars are just novelties and said the industry needs to find solutions to cost and infrastructure challenges. [Reuters]

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In February 2007, in his very first presidential campaign visit to New Hampshire, Mitt Romney toured a solar power plant. Unsurprisingly for a politician in such a location, he found some nice things to say about renewable energy. [Salon]

More than 127 million Americans — about 41 percent of the country — still suffer from pollution levels that can make breathing dangerous, according to a new report. [Huffington Post]

Clergy belonging to a group called Interfaith Moral Action on Climate are urging Congress to enact legislation to combat global warming. [Associated Press]

Maine regulators on Tuesday put three utilities on the path to distribute electricity harnessed from tides at the nation’s eastern tip, a key milestone in a bid to turn the natural rise and fall of ocean levels into power. [Washington Post]

At 11:10 a.m. on the dot, a squad of fresh-faced environmental activists bearing ominous black balloons sashayed into Apple’s flagship store on Union Square. [Los Angeles Times]

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India is considering establishing a strategic energy fund to finance purchases of overseas assets to help secure raw materials such as coal and crude oil, three government officials said. [Wall Street Journal]

Remaining mangroves in Vietnam face the threat of being razed entirely to make way for a golf course as part of local economic development plans — part of a global development trend that has seen the clearance of as much as 50% of the world’s mangroves over the past half a century. [Guardian]