With governments in industrial nations slashing subsidies for technologies ranging from wind turbines to solar power and biomass, clean energy investment slid 11 percent last year.
However, booming solar and wind installations were still seen in countries like South Africa, Japan and most importantly, number-one spender China, according to data released yesterday by Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF).
A two-day ministerial-level meeting of the Mekong River Commission (MRC) in the Laotian city of Luang Prabang next week is set to put trans-boundary co-operation to the test and with critical decisions to be made on the fate of the Mekong River, vital to the livelihoods of 60 million people.
Ahead of the MRC, which takes place on the January 16-17, the WWF is warning that representatives from Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam must put derailed decision-making on Mekong River mainstream dams back on track or risk sabotaging management of one of the world’s great rivers.
Philippine company Basic Energy Corp is reported to be on the verge of signing a USD2 billion deal to develop both renewable energy and oil and gas projects.
Sinohydro Group Ltd, China’s biggest hydroelectric dam builder, have set aside 1.36 billion yuan (USD218 million) to develop solar and wind farm projects, according to Bloomberg.
In the wake of the decision by Hydro Tasmania to withdraw all its staff from a number of controversial dam projects in the Malaysian state of Sarawak, an intense NGO-driven debate is gaining ground in Malaysia over the feasibility of the dam projects against a massive and well-organized opposition from Sarawak's indigenous communities.
China and India agreed to join forces on clean technologies at the global level during a high level meeting in New Delhi last week, according to The Climate Group.
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has unsurprisingly concluded that Burma has a wealth of possibilities for power generation but lacks the money to exploit them.
Cambodian Royal Group and Chinese Hydrolancang International Energy have signed a joint-venture agreement to build a 400-MW hydropower dam on a Mekong tributary in Stung Treng province in northeastern Cambodia.
Planned future revisions of Vietnam's Environmental Protection Law should have stricter and smarter rules on environmental planning and monitoring. Government officials have also said that the earlier drafts have proved ineffectual.
Sarawak's Taib family has come under attack again for being almost single-handedly responsible for the environmental and social destruction befalling the biodiversity-rich Sarawak.
A new Bruno Manser Fund study reports that plans to dam virtually all the rivers in the Malaysian state's interior for hydropower will result in “cultural genocide” and the devastation of hundreds of thousands of hectares of rainforest.
It also names a number of international companies including Sinohydro and The China Three Gorges Corporation as being complicit
At least 600-MW of renewable energy projects have been awarded by the Philippine Government to private developers in the Central Visayas region as of September, according to Department of Energy supervisor of the environmental impact and monitoring division, Rey C Maleza, speaking to reporters on the side lines of an renewable energy forum in Manila this week.
The usual upbeat mood at the Abu Dhabi International Petroleum Exhibition and Conference (ADIPEC) has been overshadowed this week by the release Monday of the International Energy Agency's (IEA) World Energy Outlook which said that the US will overtake Saudi Arabia as the world's largest oil producer by 2020.
South Korea’s Renetec Co is looking for over USD300 million investment in its planned 200-MW tidal power project. While the company claims it will be the world's biggest, Bloomberg reports 16 other tidal projects around the world are also vying for the title.
According to Vietnamese website, Tuoi Tre, a large number of backers of hydropower projects in the country’s central provinces have vanished leaving a number of small- and medium-sized projects unfinished and the surrounding areas exposed to environmental damage.
Cambodia's Cabinet on Friday said that it had approved construction of another large hydroelectric dam on a tributary of the Mekong River, which is certain to raise the ire of numerous opposing forces.
The Asian Development Bank is considering providing funds to a controversial 400-MW dam project on the Xekong River, a major tributary of the Mekong River, which could have adverse downstream impacts.
Last week the Lao government signed a concession agreement with the Xe Pian Xe Namnoy Power Company, in which Ratchaburi Electricity Generating Holding – Thailand's largest private power producer – holds a 25 percent stake. Another 26 percent is held by Korea’s SK Engineering and Construction, 25 percent by Korea Western Power and 24 percent by Lao Holding State Enterprise.
A USD150 million hydropower deal has been signed in Vietnam. A joint venture between South Korea’s Samsung C&T Corporation and Vietnamese firm Construction Company 47 is to build and equip the Trung Son Hydropower Plant, in the first contract signed for the project.
Developers of the Xayaburi hydropower plant in northern Laos expect to complete the redesign of the first run-of-river dam planned for the lower Mekong within the next few months, aiming to mitigate any negative impacts on neighboring countries.
This report by the World Bank spells out what the world would be like if it warmed by 4 degrees Celsius, which is what scientists are nearly unanimously predicting by the end of the century, without serious policy changes.
Companies in Asia reveal expectations that regulations that could lead to rising costs for reporting and reducing GHG emissions will also be the main sources of climate-related business opportunities.
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