Braun Kohle

[‘Garzweiler panorama’ (2013) Photo: Raimond Spekking] Lignite or brown coal supplies more than 25% of Germany’s electricity (Chazan and Foy, 2016). The soft peat-based rock forms close to the surface and is considered the lowest rank of coal due to its relatively low heat content, low energy density and typically high moisture content. Lignite causes… Continue reading Braun Kohle

The Paris Agreement

Prior to COP21 in Paris, December 2015, policy makers agreed that a suitable target for the UN summit was to keep global temperature rises caused by greenhouse gas emissions below 2 ˚C, a figure commensurate with a pre-industrial era (for a critique of this figure and the use of surface temperature as a catch-all indicator… Continue reading The Paris Agreement