The $3.7-million project could take several decades because of the severity of the environmental damage done by illegal mining, which has deforested the park and polluted its rivers with mercury. The 485,226-acre national park is an important biological corridor along Colombia’s Pacific coast.
Paulina Hennig-Kloska, who was appointed climate and environment minister in December 2023, said that the half-year moratorium in forests across the country was the first step to limiting logging. The government promised in its coalition agreement to protect 20% of the country’s forests.
Education Minister Gabriel Attal has just been appointed prime minister of France, the first out gay man and LGBTQ+ person to be named to the position. At age 34, he will also be the country’s youngest prime minister in its Fifth Republic.
The U.S. Department of Energy has announced that four additional heat pump manufacturers successfully produced heat pump prototypes as part of the Residential Cold Climate Heat Pump (CCHP) Technology Challenge. Launched in 2021, this initiative brings together public and private sector stakeholders to address technical challenges and market barriers to adopting next-generation cold-climate heat pumps—a key clean energy technology that can potentially save households $500 a year or more on their utility bills while also slashing harmful carbon emissions.
A new Polish national program plans to replace half the country’s 2.7 million wood and coal-fired furnaces with natural gas furnaces or even more efficient heat pumps by 2030. The policy is projected to save more than 21,000 lives a year in Poland, increase the number of people breathing clean air 15-fold, and help Poland reach new E.U. air quality standards.
Starting in 2026, only ships powered by alternative fuels will be allowed to visit Norway’s fjords. Lawmakers want to protect the unique natural environment and stop marine diesel oil and mass tourism from damaging the climate. Some ships are now powered by liquefied natural gas (LNG), but that will no longer qualify as an acceptable fuel for cruise ships visiting the fjords of Norway.
In 2023, GHG emissions in Germany fell to 673 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, according to Agora Energiewende. That is down 46% compared to the reference year of 1990 and the lowest level since the 1950s. At the same time, carbon emissions were about 49 million tons below the German national target of 722 million tons as specified by Germany’s Climate Protection Act and 73 million tons lower than the prior year.
Starting this week, same-sex couples can get married in Estonia, making it the first former Soviet nation to legalize marriage equality. Legislation for marriage equality passed the Baltic state’s parliament with a vote of 55 to 34 last June.
The UK’s gas power plants last year generated 31% of the UK’s electricity, or 98 terawatt hours, according to a report by the industry journal Carbon Brief, while the UK’s last remaining coal plant produced enough electricity to meet just 1% of the UK’s power demand or 4TWh. Fossil fuels have been increasingly squeezed out of the electricity system by a surge in renewable energy generation combined with higher electricity imports from France and Norway and a long-term trend of falling demand.
For the first time, in 2022, Scottish renewables generated more power than the country used, new government figures show. The growth of wind power, coupled with a small drop in electricity consumption, meant that the volume of electricity produced by renewables in Scotland was equal to 113 percent of demand.
