Is this housing’s path to net-zero carbon emissions?
The prime minister’s ten-point plan for a green industrial revolution is aimed at achieving ‘net zero’ carbon emissions by 2050. In the housing sector alone the challenge is enormous: just to reach the government’s interim target for housing by 2035 means retrofitting 1.2 million UK homes every year to high standards. Will the government’s plan […]
Our homes are wasting energy on a prolific scale
Do you remember when housing associations were falling over each other to prove how ‘green’ they were? But since the recession and David Cameron reportedly telling his aides to “get rid of all the green crap” the funding has been cut and the social sector’s priorities have changed. Yet we all know that the linked […]
Can a coast-to-coast canal solve Nicaragua’s poverty problem?
Nicaragua is a small country that was praised for eventually signing the Paris climate agreement in October, but has since been criticised for pushing ahead with a planned interoceanic canal, with its uncertain environmental effects. So how does it reconcile these apparently conflicting positions? Nicaragua and Syria were the only two countries not to sign […]
The US is out, Nicaragua’s in
While Donald Trump gives the appearance of wavering over his decision to pull the US out of the Paris Climate Agreement, Nicaragua has decided to sign it. It was one of only two countries not to sign in Paris last year; the other was Syria. Nicaragua abstained out of principle: the agreement didn’t go far […]
Solar-powered irrigation system starts to pump water
The ‘Agrosolar’ project, funded by the British embassy, has begun to pump water to irrigate crops right at the start of Nicaragua’s dry season. El Timal is in the almost forgotten area between Nicaragua’s two large lakes, only about 20km from the international airport but with practically no transport connections to the nearest town. Into […]
Remembering Felicita Zeledón: the woman who told the world about the tragedy at Posoltega
The untimely death of Felicita Zeledón, a member of the National Assembly, recalls the tragedy that hit the rural area of Posoltega on the morning of 30 October 1998. Zeledón, then mayor of the small town on the Leon-Chinandega highway, became the central figure in dealing with the biggest humanitarian crisis in Nicaragua since the […]
Happy new year
We’re behaving as if we had 1.5 earths available to us, and our behaviour is getting worse. Every year the Global Footprint Network calculates the date on which people use up one year’s worth of the planet’s biocapacity. In 2013 we achieved this on 20 August. This year we’ve done it a day earlier. In […]
Drought hits Central America
The government is blaming it on the warming of the Pacific Ocean known as El Niño, while scientists are disputing how much warming has actually occurred. But whatever the cause the drought that has hit Central America and extends south into Colombia is very real. The rainy season should have begun in May, but three […]
If we don’t put the environment high on our list of concerns, it will
This longer than usual post is one of a series of essays on policy themes published by the Chartered Institute of Housing. Since it was elected on the promise of becoming the ‘greenest government ever’, the Guardian’s green-o-meter has been monitoring the coalition’s progress. Back in early 2011, it was still doing pretty well, but […]
John Perry lives in Masaya, Nicaragua where he works on