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The world's first hydroelectric power scheme was developed
It was at Cragside in Northumberland, England by William George Armstrong -
The first windmill for generating electricit was built
Was built by Prof James Blyth of Anderson's College, Glasgow -
The first commercial geothermal heat pump was built
It was built by J. Donald Kroeker to heat the Commonwealth Building (Portland, Oregon) -
Electricity and natural gas displace wood heat in most homes and commercial buildings
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The first nuclear plant was built
the USSR's Obninsk Nuclear Power Plant became the world's first nuclear power plant to generate electricity for a power grid, and produced around 5 megawatts of electric power -
Concerns about crude oil supplies and environmental quality lead to renewed interest in ethanol and other biomass energy sources. Governments begin to fund research into converting biomass into useful energy and fuels.
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The commercial solarpower plants were developed
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Biomass power plants are built in North America.
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Increasing environmental concerns and changes in government policies spur production of biodiesel fuels in Europe and the United States.
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The UN Kyoto Protocol
37 countries committed to reducing GHG, by the insufficiently ambitious target of 5.2%from 1990 levels by 2012, with 191 countries agreeing to implement "general" measures. In practice, most countries failed to meet their contributions to the target and GHG emissions have continued to grow rapidly
(renewable energy and climate change) -
Green-X
The core objective of this project is to facilitate a significantly increased electricity generation from renewable energy sources (RES-E) in a liberalised electricity market with minimal costs to European citizen. To identify most important strategies the dynamic toolbox Green-X will be developed. Related objectives are:
to find a set of efficient and sustainable dynamic instruments integrating strategies for RES-E, CHP generation, DSM activities and GHG-reduction
http://www.green-x.at/ -
The G20 Leaders' Meeting
The G20 Leaders' Meeting undertook commitments, over the medium term, to phase out subsidies that encourage wasteful consumption -
The G8 Summit
Called to share with all countries the goal of cutting global GHG emissions by 50%, but commitments subsequently announced by some individual countries even if they were fully implemented would not be sufficient to achieve the 2 C limit goal
(Renewable energy and climate change) -
The UN Copenhagen Accord
All major participating countries agreed a non-binding objective of limiting the increase in global average temperature to 2 C above pre-industrial levels, which required industrialised countries to set emission targets for 2020. Lomited action resulted and negotiations continued.
(Renewable energy and climate change) -
The UN Cancun Agreement
The UN Cancun Agreement acknowledged the need to restrict the global temperature rise to 2 C, with many countries announcing non-binding measures, but which again would be insufficient even if implemented to achieve the target
(Renewable energy and climate change) -
The UN Durban Agreement
The UN Durban Agreement recognised the need to raise the collective level of ambition to reduce GHG emissions to keep the average global temperature rise below 2 C; decided to adopt a universal legal agreement on climate change not later than 2015, with actions to come into force by 2020; and 38 industrualised countries agreed a second period of the Kyoto Protocol, but Canada withdrew from the agreement
(Renewable energy and climate change) -
The Doha climate change conference
The Doha climate change conference laid the basis for more ambitious international action against climate change in the short term, took a modest step towards a new global climate agreement to be finalised in 2015 and enabled a second period of the Kyoto Protocol to start on 1 January 2013.
(http://ec.europa.eu/clima/events/articles/0062_en.htm) -
Warsaw climate change conference
The conference agreed a timeplan for countries to table their contributions to reducing or limiting greenhouse gas emissions under a new global climate agreement to be adopted in 2015. It also agreed ways to accelerate efforts to deepen emission cuts over the rest of this decade, and to set up a mechanism to address losses and damage caused by climate change in vulnerable developing countries.
(http://ec.europa.eu/clima/events/articles/0086_en.htm)