This week’s ten biggest climate innovation stories — 8 March

Posts 08 Mar 2018

Which cities are at the top of new green finance rankings? How could big investments in cryptocurrency help the energy sector? And is tackling agricultural emissions the cheapest way to tackle climate change?

This, and more, in the week’s ten biggest climate innovation stories.

1. Paris, and Frankfurt top new green finance rankings

The world’s first benchmark for green financial centres was launched last week, designed to measure and assess how the main financial centres for the G7 countries – Frankfurt, London, Milan, New York, Paris, Tokyo, and Toronto – contribute to the financing of the climate and environment transition.

2. First sustainable Lego pieces to go on sale

Range including leaves, bushes and trees made entirely from plant-based plastic sourced from sugar cane will be available later this year.

3. Danish Environmental Economics Council calls for tax on cows

The Danish Environmental Economics Council has released its yearly report and it shows that reductions in greenhouse gas emissions are least costly in the agricultural sector.

4. Sweden’s Vattenfall looks to sun power with €100m solar drive

Swedish state utility plans SEK1bn investment in large scale solar generation over next two years as it steps up its plans to become fossil fuel free “within a generation”. the €98 million investment will go mainly towards developing large scale solar power plants in 2018 and 2019, focused on sites that can use existing grid infrastructure to reduce costs.

5. This Swedish indoor urban farm wants to revolutionise how we live and eat

In the basement of a landmark 27-story tower in Stockholm’s central Kungsholmen district, Owe Pettersson is hoping to sow the seeds of an indoor urban farming revolution.

6. Investors Put $300 Million in Crypto Energy Investments

Investors poured $300 million since July 2017 into applications that will let people buy and sell energy with cryptocurrencies. Half that amount came just in January, and there are now 122 companies developing products or services for the energy industry. These companies are betting people will increasingly use encrypted currencies for everything from selling solar power from rooftop panels to charging electric vehicles. Most of them are designing systems that run on top of a so-called blockchain layer that can use multiple types of digital currencies.

7. France calls on EU nations to adopt carbon price floor

At a conference hosted by France on Monday to debate the issue, French ecology minister Brune Poirson called for a price floor of from 25 to 30 euros per ton in power generation to help accelerate the shift from coal to gas and renewables.

8. New scenarios show how the world could limit warming to 1.5C in 2100

A new report suggest that 1.5C is achievable if global emissions peak in the next few years and massive amounts of carbon are sucked out of the atmosphere in the second half of the century through a proposed technology known as bioenergy with carbon capture and storage.

9. 12,000 distribution boxes in Germany are being converted into EV charging stations

Germany could be set up with thousands of new charging stations for electric cars, Electrek reported. Telekom, a European telecommunications business headquartered in Bonn plans to convert distribution boxes of theirs into charge points, and they could double the charging infrastructure in the country with 12,000 new stations.

10. Exxon Thinks It Can Create Biofuel From Algae At Massive Scale

The fossil fuel company thinks it could make 10,000 barrels a day in a few years, a tiny proportion of the fossil fuel oil it produces, but a huge boost in the amount of algae-based biofuel.