A summary of today’s top climate and clean energy stories.
Email the team on [email protected] or get in touch via Twitter.
Canada: Faced with uncertainty over its proposed Keystone XL pipeline, which would link Canada’s oil sands with the American Gulf Coast, TransCanada said on Thursday that it would build a pipeline to eastern Canada. (NY Times)
China: A heat wave in China has left dozens of people dead in at least 40 cities and counties, mostly in the south and east. It’s been so hot that people are grilling shrimp on manhole covers, eggs are hatching without incubators and a highway billboard has mysteriously caught fire by itself. (NY Times)
Germany: Germany increased spending on energy research 77 percent in the past seven years, benefiting mainly renewable-power and efficiency projects as the country shuts nuclear reactors. (Bloomberg)
Japan: Siemens AG, Europe’s biggest engineering company, expects Japan to almost double its capacity of renewable energy by 2030, while continuing with nuclear power generation even after the Fukushima disaster. (Bloomberg)
Australia: Australia’s major cities could see four times the number of heat-related deaths by 2050, according to a new report commissioned by the Australian federal government. (Climate Progress)
US: In reaction to the updating of the social cost of carbon (SSC) by the Obama Administration, two Republican senators have put forward new legislation that would require any agency to allow a 60-day waiting period for public comment before establishing any new rule or guideline that involves the SCC. (Climate Progress)
Australia: A leaked Climate Change Authority report to the government advises that Australia should aim to slash emissions by 15% on 2000 levels by 2020. (Guardian)
Research: Shifts in climate lead to greater violence and conflict, according to a wide-ranging analysis in Science that draws upon data from dozens of studies. The team estimates that when temperature or rainfall rises by one standard deviation, violence between individual people increases by 4 percent and conflict between groups by 14 percent. (Conservation)