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Climate Action
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Eastern Europe, Caucasus
and Central Asia
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At
least 13 people were killed in Tajikistan
following flash floods triggered by heavy rains,
the Emergencies Committee of the Central Asian
nation said on August 28. The deaths occurred in
Vahdat and Rudaki districts, east and south of
the capital, Dushanbe, which were hit by storms
and heavy rains, authorities said, adding that
the flash floods also damaged roads. The
committee said that the risk of landslides
remained high. President Emomali Rahmon sent
condolences to the victims' families, his office
said.
The
region needs more investment in the development
of new generation capacity, including hydro
power plants, solar and wind power plants, the
construction and upgrade of water treatment
facilities, and so on. Climate finance
instruments provided by multilateral development
banks (MDBs) for adaptation and mitigation could
further boost the low-carbon transformation of
the region. Aside from financing, the MDBs may
also help develop climate projects and assess
climate risks and opportunities. They can
arrange syndicated loans, provide technical
assistance, share the expertise required for
feasibility studies, mitigate risks or offer
guarantees for their reduction, and this will
encourage private investment in green
projects.
They
were participants in the ENERGEl summer camp,
run by Gutta-Club with the support of the
programme “Addressing the impacts of the energy
crisis in Moldova”, funded by the European Union
and implemented by UNDP Moldova. The camp took
place in two shifts: 29 July – 8 August and 11 –
21 August. Students are now equipped to adopt an
eco-friendly lifestyle, saving energy, recycling
waste and urging their family and friends to do
the same. The camp programme included a visit to
Moldova’s largest photovoltaic park—a $4 million
investment in the Criuleni district, and a
sanitation activity in Răculești village. The
children calculated their own climate footprints
and put on a climate-themed show. They also took
part in practical workshops on reusing
objects.
Kazakh
officials are moving forward with plans to build
the country’s first nuclear power plant,
although unsurprisingly, there is public
opposition. On August 29, 1949, the Soviet Union
exploded its first atomic bomb over an area in
northeastern Kazakhstan. Over the next 40 years,
there were 455 more tests in the same area and
the effects of the radiation continue to cause
suffering today. Joining host Bruce Pannier to
talk about Kazakhstan’s nuclear legacy is
Togzhan Kassenova, author of the widely
acclaimed book Atomic Steppe: How Kazakhstan
Gave Up the Bomb.
Real-time
monitoring and control of urban water systems is
an approach aimed at optimizing the management
of water systems within cities. By integrating
advanced technologies such as sensors, data
analysis, and automation, this approach enhances
the efficiency, reliability, and sustainability
of our urban water services. This webinar will
explore the potential for real time monitoring
and control that can be used in urban stormwater
management. In particular, we look at how real
time monitoring and control can be used to
protect ecosystems, deliver fit for purpose
alternate water supplies, and even potentially
reduce nuisance flooding.
Official customs data
shows that China imported
13.4 billion cubic meters of natural gas (bcm)
during the month of June, a 19 percent increase
over the import level during the same month in
2022. Global imports arrived in China via
pipelines and in liquefied form. Overall, 5.785
bcm of gas was imported via pipelines in June, a
slight increase over the previous month’s
totals. The main suppliers via pipelines were
Turkmenistan (2.69 bcm), Russia (1.9 bcm),
Kazakhstan (610 million cubic meters) and
Uzbekistan (370 mcm).
The Deputy Foreign
Minister of Uzbekistan, Bobur Usmanov,
has announced that Uzbekistan has increased its
commitments under the Paris Climate Agreement by
200%. This is a significant increase in
ambition, and it shows that Uzbekistan is
serious about taking action on climate
change. Usmanov made the announcement at a
press conference in Tashkent on Tuesday. He said
that the increase in commitments is part of
Uzbekistan’s “nationally determined
contributions” to the Paris Agreement. These
contributions are a set of targets that
countries set for themselves to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions.
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Ecuador voted
overwhelmingly on Sunday to halt oil drilling in
one of the most biodiverse places on
earth.
With almost all ballots counted, 59 percent of
voters sided with the young activists who spent
a decade fighting for the referendum, as
we wrote last
week.
It is widely considered to be the first time a
country’s citizens voted decisively to leave oil
in the ground. In a separate referendum,
Ecuadoreans also voted to block mining
in a biosphere reserve. “The answer from the
Ecuadorean people suggests to us that the people
are proposing a different way to live,”
Monserrat Vásquez, an anti-mining activist, told
reporters after the victory was
announced.
Dismayed at what they
see as government inaction over climate change,
six young people from Portugal are taking 32
European countries to court. A month away from
being heard by the European Court of Human
Rights (ECHR), they hope their legal battle will
inspire others to demand environmental justice
worldwide. The case - filed in September 2020
against the 27 EU member states as well Britain,
Switzerland, Norway, Russia and Turkey -
seeks a legally binding decision that would
force the governments to act against climate
change. It is one of the
first such cases to be heard before the court,
where citizens say inaction has violated their
human rights. It could result in orders for
governments to cut carbon dioxide emissions
faster than currently planned.
The idea of converting
gasoline-powered cars into electric
vehicles (EVs) is nothing new.
The modern EV movement, to a large extent, was
born in the garages and workshops of early 2000s
tinkerers obsessed with slapping batteries and
jerry-rigged electric drive systems into old
cars. JB
Straubel, the co-founder and
original head of technology at Tesla, got his start in that
electric hobbyist scene, getting his hands on a
beat-up 1984 Porsche, cramming it with bulky,
heavy lead-acid batteries, and drag racing it in
competitions. Even Tesla’s original offering,
the Tesla Roadster, was to some extent just a
more advanced version of one of those projects:
a chassis from a Lotus Elise sports car,
redesigned to accommodate lithium-ion batteries
and electric motors.
When
countries adopt a global fund for climate
disaster losses and damages at the Cop28 climate
talks, the USA will be arguing to limit its use,
according to U.S. officials. Developing nations
successfully demanded at last year’s Cop27
climate summit funding for loss and damage
caused by climate change, including a dedicated
fund, which countries will adopt this year. In
climate negotiations, “loss and damage” refers
to existing costs incurred from climate-fueled
weather impacts, such as last year’s devastating
Pakistan flooding.
A
study, led by researchers from the University of
Technology in Sydney, suggests that a ‘biosolar’
rooftop system – one that combines a solar
system installed on a roof that is partially or
completely covered with vegetation – provides
significant improvements in panel efficiency and
energy production. “As solar panels heat up
beyond 25℃, their efficiency decreases
markedly,” the researchers said. “Green roofs
moderate rooftop temperatures so we wanted to
find out could green roofs help with the problem
of heat reducing the output of solar
panels.”
One of
the world’s biggest scientific publishers has
retracted a journal article that claimed to have
found no evidence of a climate crisis. Springer
Nature said it had retracted the article, by
four Italian physicists, after an internal
investigation found the conclusions were “not
supported by available evidence or data provided
by the authors”. Climate sceptic groups widely
publicised the article, which appeared in the
European Physical Journal Plus in January 2022 –
a journal not known for publishing climate
change science.
Europe is recovering
from last year's severe drought thanks to this
spring's rain. But under the ground, aquifers
are still at a very low level. Despite the
heatwave currently hitting much of Europe, the
soil's water status has been improving - but
only on the surface, not underground. On the
wane since mid-June, drought has been at its
lowest level since early 2022 in Europe and
along the entire Mediterranean coastline,
according to the latest data from the European Drought
Observatory (EDO). At the beginning of
August, some 28% of Europe and the Mediterranean
coasts of the Near East and North Africa were
affected by drought, the lowest level since
January 2022.
By
2030, it wants textile products imported into
the EU market to be “long-lived and recyclable,
to a great extent made of recycled fibres, free
of hazardous substances and produced in respect
of social rights and the environment”. It is
part of what the EU describes as a “circular
economy” in which the bloc consumes and discards
less overall. The EU hopes its legislation will
encourage policymakers around the world to adopt
similar measures and force brands to rethink
their business practices with benefits for every
market where they sell their clothes. Achieving
this, however, involves changes to existing
legislation, awareness campaigns and a new
proposal to require producers — whether
manufacturers, importers or distributors — to
pay for the treatment of waste
textiles.
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Sent: Tuesday, August 29, 2023 10:55
AM
Subject: 🌏CAN EECCA Newsletter: Nuclear
dispute in Kazakhstan, Equador bans oil drilling, Floods
Kill 13 In Tajikistan
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