Overheard on post-Hurricane Sandy news reports, a New Jersey resident noted, “I’ve experienced three ‘once-in-a-hundred-years’ storms in the last 18 months!” Something is up.
Dirty Energy pollution is heating up our climate, and we end up with Dirty Weather. Climate disruption affects us all, and it will take all of us together to solve it.
Did you know that 1.3 billion people – one in five globally – have no access to electricity? Some 95% of them live in sub-Saharan Africa or developing Asia. The world’s poorest are already paying the most as a proportion of their household income for inadequate, dangerous and unhealthy sources of energy.
Kim Saylor, Vice President for Walmart Energy, recently traveled to Uganda and Kenya to see solar power in action improving the lives of those who have lived for too long without access to modern energy services. In the piece below, she describes her experience seeing families – and in particular children – benefiting from the educational, health and safety improvements that these lights offer to families in developing countries, and how businesses and non-profits are working together to provide these solutions to the families who need them the most.
The United Nations Foundation’s energy and public affairs team, led by UN Foundation President Timothy E. Wirth, have been in Brazil the past week for the Rio+20 summit. There has been a buzz in the halls about energy, touching two points: There’s a BIG and urgent need to enable everyone in the world to have access to electricity and modern fuels, and that creates a market opportunity.
At six years old, my son Travis surprises me fairly often. Last month, as we planned his birthday party, I got a surprise that made me really proud of him, and reminded me that our kids are sometimes way more ready to grow than we realize.
When the electricity goes out, you know how quickly and easily your life is disrupted. You can’t watch television; your food could spoil in the refrigerator; you stumble in the darkness to find a flashlight or candles; the traffic lights might even be out of service in your neighborhood.
Last Friday, the Center for Global Development hosted a robust and informative discussion on U.S. leadership in the context of Sustainable Energy for All, an initiative of United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
Each year, Earth Day — April 22 — marks the anniversary of what many consider the birth of the modern environmental movement in 1970. The idea came to Earth Day founder Gaylord Nelson, then a U.S. Senator from Wisconsin, after witnessing the ravages of the 1969 massive oil spill in Santa Barbara, California.
On April 22, more than one billion people in 192 countries will come together on Earth Day to Mobilize the Earth™ and call for a sustainable future. From Rome to Rio, London to New Orleans, Beirut to Muscat, Kolkata to Jakarta, Beijing to Melbourne, communities everywhere will voice their concerns for the planet and demand change.
During her trip to Washington D.C., Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Christiana Figueres, visited the United Nations Foundation. UN Foundation Vice President for Climate and Energy, Reid Detchon and Figueres held a media roundtable with some of D.C’s most prominent climate and energy reporters.
