Energy and Environment Encyclopedias Articles

At the national level or global level, there are environmental inequalities linked to the natural characteristics of living areas, the level of development of populations, exceptional climatic events, etc. The social impacts of these inequalities are thus very heterogeneous, and the implementation of policies can also increase or reduce them. What do these inequalities exactly overlap? What are the associated issues and the possible measures to address them?

Diesel engines and wood-burning fireplaces are regularly accused of causing numerous deaths through fine particles (PM 2.5). These volatile elements are a major component of air pollution and therefore a public health lever. However, there are various sources of fine particles as well as ultra-fine particles, such as those from petrol engines, which are difficult to quantify. The measurements now being carried out only provide an overall mass concentration in the air. Therefore, does the current harmfulness of these technologies really correspond to that perceived and communicated to the general public?

Carbon atoms are basic elements of all living things. Via photosynthesis, plants, algae and some bacteria use energy from the sun to pull CO2 from our atmosphere. Then, the processes of respiration and decomposition of all these living things returns the CO2 back to the atmosphere. Beyond this short life cycle is a longer, slower geological cycle, which stores carbon in limestone and in fossil hydrocarbons. Limestone comes from marine organisms’ shells. Meanwhile, hydrocarbons are the result of the burial of organic sediments. Burning fossil fuels today has the effect of short-circuiting this slow cycle, CO2 is released very faster than it is captured, overruling the natural regeneration processes, leading to the rapid accumulation of CO2 in our atmosphere, which then causes global warming, as well as ocean acidification, which disrupts marine life.

The purpose of environmental taxation is simple: to change people’s behaviour by increasing the cost of actions that hurt the environment. It has the added benefit of making people aware of the effects their actions have on biodiversity, natural resources and public health – just to name a few. Environmental taxation includes a wide variety of possible implementation measures, which highlights how useful a tool the tax system can be to protect the environment.

Understand the “climate machine” with this introduction to the most important concepts, including how the climate system works, and what contributes to its complexity. What is the different between climate and meteorology or weather? What are the essential elements of the climate system? These and other basic questions are answered in this article. Additionally, we discuss both the internal and external causes of climate change by learning about forcing and feedback, the concept of climate predictability and different time scales, and briefly introduce climatology and related sciences (including physics, chemistry, biology and geology).

Imagine this: You are hiking across the magnificent Lubéron massif in Southern France. You pass a herd of sheep and a shepherd watching over them, but around the next corner on your path hides an industrial installation, lying quietly between two hills: offices, pumping stations, and wellheads (as you see in Figure 1). You probably do not realise that, at a depth of one kilometre under your feet, lies a significant portion of France’s strategic oil reserves. It’s nearly 10 million tonnes (almost two months’ consumption) spread throughout about 40 caves that are each several hundred metres high, in a subterranean layer of salt. In this article, we’ll explore the challenges, opportunities, risks and costs, of this type of formation.

300,000 additional deaths per year between 2030 and 2050 and $2 to 4 billion per year by 2030: this is the estimated impact of climate change, mainly through increased malnutrition, disease and heat-related stress. Agriculture is indeed very vulnerable to temperature variations while populations of virus-carrying insects will increase tenfold thanks to a more favourable environment. The radical change in living conditions, which differs from region to region, with the emergence of "climate refugees" (250 million expected in 2050), nevertheless makes the forecasting exercise difficult. Everyone remembers the 2003 heat wave in which 70,000 people died in Europe in August alone.

The Earth’s water is essentially salty. The water cycle that is necessary for terrestrial life is fed by ocean evaporation, then condensed and released by rainfalls, run by the thermal engine of the sun. This cycle supplies water to the continents, which is divided into blue water (in rivers and groundwater) and green water (stored in the soil after rain and then used and transpired by plants). Human consumption of water as a resource is still rather modest: we use 7% of blue water and 9% of green water, but the problem is the geographic distribution of humanity: We don’t live where the water resources are. Steppes and arid zones are home to 21.5% of the humans on Earth, where only 2% of the planet’s blue water resources are present. And the amount of water we use is constantly increasing because of population growth and changes in our diets, while at the same time climate change is affecting water resources. Given all of this, how can we balance water supply and demand in order avoid shortages, famines, bloody conflicts and mass migration in 2050, and in 2100?

The development of intermittent RES generates a destabilisation of the electricity system, as their production time is not correlated with that of the demand. In an electricity system with an increasing share of intermittent RES, there is a greater need for flexibility. Hydropower, as a manageable and renewable energy, has a key role to play in balancing the power system. To what extent can hydropower ensure grid stability in a decarbonised world?

The meaning of the term “energy transition” has varied with time and currently has different meanings across world regions – including within Europe. To avoid allowing this important definition to become so malleable that it risks blurring climate issues, this article first clarifies the different uses of the term. Starting from this understanding, three shifts are necessary: Carbon-free energy sources must no longer be added to existing sources, but rather must take their place entirely; energy efficiency gains must no longer lead to higher consumption (via the relative price reduction produced by efficiency); and the timeline of the energy transition must truly be based on the climate clock, not on politics.