Wind firms reach out in times of need
The coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic has stunned the wind-power industry, breaking supply chains, jeopardising project maintenance and casting uncertainty over legislation for helping the sector, as governments switch to a wartime footing. It has all but paralysed the industry.
While this part of the magazine is usually reserved for quirky and irreverent stories, that feels inappropriate while cities around the world are in lockdown and people are ill or dying.
Instead, “uåX˜äŠÊ˜·³Ç would like to recognise several wind power developers and manufacturers helping people amid the Covid-19 crisis.
China-based Envision Group, owner of turbine maker Envision Energy, launched a centre in Jiangsu province, north of Shanghai, to produce and donate 100,000 face masks per day on 1 March.
It is also delivering personal-protection equipment to hard-hit areas such as Hubei province, where the coronavirus outbreak started.
Meanwhile, development partners EDP and China Three Gorges have donated medical equipment, including 50 ventilators and 200 monitors to Portuguese hospitals.
And EDP’s clean energy subsidiary EDPR has offered 520 sanitary masks to hospitals in Madrid, Spain.
Thank you.
Fossil-fuel investment figures and facts
$2.7 trillion Total financing of fossil fuels by 35 banks from the US, Canada, Europe, China and Japan in four years since Paris Agreement
$271 billion Financing of fossil fuels by US-based investment bank JP Morgan Chase alone during this period
9 Number of banks out of the 35 that do not have policies restricting coal financing
20 out of the 35 banks have no policies restricting oil and gas financing
Source: Banking on Climate Change: Fossil Fuel Finance Report, various US environmental groups
Former Olympian champions climate bill
Zali Steggall, a former Australian Olympic skier turned independent MP for Warringah, New South Wales, has launched an advertising campaign featuring images of Australia’s destructive summer bushfires for her private member’s bill on climate change.
The bill aims to help the country move to a decarbonised economy and includes a framework for five-year energy plans.
In last year’s federal election, Steggall took the seat from ex-prime minister Tony Abbott, who once claimed climate change was "probably doing good" and compared global warming action to "killing goats to appease volcano gods".
Quote of the month
"Governments need to make sure they keep clean-energy transitions front of mind as they respond to this fast-evolving coronavirus crisis"
Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency
.png)
.png)
