[GWSG] Ending subsidies; UK loses climate dept.; Greenland melt growing; Ant. tip cooler; cheap H; US charging network

[Tilley, Al]

?1.  Mary Robinson, the UN climate change envoy, has charged the UK and Germany with violating pledges they made in the Paris agreement not to subsidize fossil fuels.  Robinson urged more attention among nations generally to ending fossil fuel subsidies.     https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jul/18/un-criticises-uk-and-german-for-betraying-the-spirit-of-the-paris-climate-deal



2.  Theresa May, the UK's new prime minister, has abolished the Department of Energy and Climate Change.  It is now the Department of Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy.  Because the old administration was stacked in favor of natural gas and other nefarious interests, and the new Chancellor is Philip Hammond, a conservative climate hawk, it may be that the UK will nonetheless be better served, or it could be that Prime Minister May will earn Mary Robinson's censure with yet more support of fossil fuels.  http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/07/18/3798793/turmoil-in-british-climate-department/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=cptop3&utm_term=1&utm_content=53



3.  A combination of modelling and satellite measurements shows that Greenland's ice loss is accelerating, with a great deal of interannual variation-for example, from 400 billion tons in 2012 to just over 100 billion tons the next year.  https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/07/19/greenland-lost-a-trillion-tons-of-ice-in-just-four-years/



4.  Over the past fifteen years the tip of the Antarctic peninsula has cooled, due in part to changes in wind patterns with the recovery of the ozone hole.  Warm sea currents are driving the melt rate.  https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jul/20/antarctic-peninsula-temperatures-have-fallen-study-shows



5.  An Australian company intends to crack natural gas with iron ore to produce hydrogen and graphite, which sequesters the carbon, at half the current cost of hydrogen.  Carbon will still be produced during mining of the ore and production of the natural gas.  (Indeed, natural gas leakage rates lead me to view this technology as dangerous-an invitation to delay the necessary transition to renewable energy sources.)  https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2016/jul/22/cheap-and-clean-australian-company-creates-hydrogen-with-near-zero-emissions



6.  The Obama administration has announced $4.5 billion in loan guarantees to support a national fast charging network for electric vehicles.  The work will begin in 2017 and hopes to have an adequate system of charging stations by 2020.  http://cleantechnica.com/2016/07/21/obama-admin-announces-4-5-billion-doe-loan-guarantees-electric-vehicle-charging-infrastructure/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+IM-cleantechnica+%28CleanTechnica%29  ?

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