US President Joe Biden has signed a series of executive orders designed to address climate change, including a new ban on some energy drilling. The orders aim to freeze new oil and gas leases on public lands and double offshore wind-produced energy by 2030. They are expected to meet stiff resistance from the energy industry and come as a sea change from Donald Trump, who cut environmental protections.

"Everybody's a bit nervous because we are very reliant about coal, coal-fired power," says Gerard Spinks, who has worked for 39 years in the power stations of the Upper Hunter. "All of our other main industries are gone — our steel, shipbuilding, rail, and textiles — so all we've got left is mining and power. Once that goes, we've got no idea what the future holds. These men are anxious to know: how does the economy transition beyond coal?

Hanoi, where Vietnam’s leadership congress is taking place, had worse air quality than Beijing and New Delhi last week. How did it get so bad? Research shows power plants and industrial activities are to blame, as PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc orders review of emissions and action against polluters.

General Motors’ surprise announcement on Thursday that it aspires to eliminate gasoline and diesel cars from its fleet by 2035 and embrace electric cars follows a road map successfully drawn by Beijing. To get there, G.M., the Detroit stalwart and symbol of American industrial might, may have no choice but to embrace car and battery technologies in which Chinese companies play leading roles.

In March last year, the World Economic Forum (WEF) launched the fifth edition of their Energy Transition Index (ETI), ranking 115 economies on how well they are able to balance energy security and access with environmental sustainability and affordability. The report considered both, the current state of the countries’ energy systems as well as their readiness to adapt to future energy needs.

Global emissions were projected to peak in 2024, but COVID-19 could accelerate the process. This year’s decline might herald an earlier transition to falling CO2 levels. Reflecting no structural changes, however, 2020 lockdown-driven declines are unstable and temporary.

President Joe Biden is sending early signals that action on climate change will be front and center to his administration’s agenda, and that his climate policy will be intertwined with his economic plan. “Biden’s economic agenda is his climate agenda; his climate agenda is his economic agenda,” Sam Ricketts, co-founder of the climate policy group Evergreen and a senior fellow at the progressive Center for American Progress think tank, told Vox.

In the pre Covid-19 world, energy transition was already at the forefront of the minds of policymakers and investors in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Renewable energy infrastructure investment in the region had been strong, reflecting government efforts to reduce carbon emissions, as well as due to the lower costs involved, given cheaper technology and economies of scale.

Europeans got more of their electricity from renewable sources than fossil fuels for the first time last year, according to an annual report from Ember and Agora Energiewende. The report, which has been tracking EU's power sector since 2015, found that renewables delivered 38% of electricity last year, compared to 37% delivered by fossil fuels.

Indonesian President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s vision to make the country a destination for foreign company investments neglects the growing demand for clean energy. RE100, a group of global companies committed to using 100% renewable energy, reached an annual total electricity consumption in 2018 almost equal to Indonesia’s total yearly consumption. The group includes big companies, some of which are present in Indonesia, such as Nike and Coca-Cola. One report has stated that their clean energy goal could drive an investment opportunity of US$94 billion.

New York state is forging ahead with hundreds of miles of new high-voltage power lines, the kind of push that clean-energy advocates would like to see copied nationwide. Long-distance transmission is an essential if unglamorous part of strategies to replace fossil-fuel power plants with non-emitting sources. Large solar and onshore wind farms sit on rural land and need a conduit to energy-hungry cities.

KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 6 — Clean energy solutions company, Plus Solar Systems Sdn Bhd believes that government policies, digitalisation and smart grid initiatives will act as growth catalysts in the Malaysian renewable energy (RE) industry. Plus Solar chief executive officer and co-founder Ko Chuan Zhen said the government has recognised solar energy generation as a key contributor towards the national 20 per cent RE goal by 2025 with the announcement of the Net Energy Metering (NEM) 3.0 programme last week.