More than 100 world leaders converged upon New York City today to discuss international efforts to reduce carbon emissions and combat climate change. The list of speakers at the UN Climate Summit included U.S. President Barack Obama, UK Prime Minister David Cameron, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, French President François Hollande, and Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli.

California and Quebec, which together created the largest carbon market in North America this year, may come away empty-handed as they woo northeastern U.S. states to join their system.

Scotland’s decision to vote no to independence from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland has elicited a collective sigh of relief from energy sector players. Those companies with significant investments in Scottish renewable energy assets had understandably been anxious over the uncertainty that an independent Scotland would engender, for example potentially changing the rules on support measures for renewable energy investment north of the border.

Japan has added 11,090 megawatts of clean energy capacity since July 2012, when it began an incentive program to encourage investment in renewables, according to the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.

Renewables became Germany’s most important power source for the first time this year, according to Agora Energiewende.

The European Union is seeking to speed up the creation of a common energy market to help its shift to a low-carbon economy and boost security of energy supplies amid a natural-gas dispute between Russia and Ukraine.

Worries including the conflict with ISIL, Ebola, and economic slow-down in Europe, sent the stock market down in the month to October 3rd, with small cap stocks and clean energy stocks falling even farther than the large cap S&P 500.

Kenya’s renewable energy ambitions have attracted growing attention in recent months. There has been a strong uptick in interest in the country’s wind energy potential in particular. Last year, Kenya’s Ministry of Energy and Petroleum said in an investment prospectus for 2013-2016 that it plans to boost wind power generation by 630 MW as part of its target to increase electricity levels by 5,000 MW by 2016. In March, the Kenyan government also signed a financing document for the largest private investment in Kenya.

The renewable energy market is fast-paced and growing with each passing day. It’s hard to keep up with every industry announcement and insight, so we decided to highlight interesting developments that took place during the past few weeks, and some valuable insights that are worth revisiting.

Snohomish County Public Utility District announced it is abandoning plans to develop the 600-kW Admiralty Inlet Pilot tidal project in Washington's Puget Sound.

The U.K. Green Investment Bank is set to tie up the first investments in a $1.6 billion fund by the end of March, part of Britain’s push to cement its dominance in offshore wind power.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s government will negotiate with the opposition to cut Australia’s renewable energy target and exempt industries such as aluminum and copper smelting.

European Union leaders backed the most-ambitious carbon emissions goals of any major economy, in a bid to crank up pressure on the U.S. and China ahead of climate talks in December.

U.S. electricity markets face years of higher prices as clean-air regulations shut more coal-fired power plants than earlier forecast, cutting supply and forcing producers to rely more on natural gas.

Humans are causing irreversible damage to the planet from burning fossil fuels, the biggest ever study of the available science concluded in a report designed to spur the fight against climate change.

October was a spooky month for clean energy stocks. My benchmark Powershares Wilderhill Clean Energy Index (PBW) cringed down 2.9 percent like the young Supergirl who jumped when a mechanical ghost startled her at my door Haloween night.

Every time the U.S. holds midyear elections, the country almost always goes against the incumbent President’s party, which is always sobering to whomever holds The White House. And this week’s elections were no exception.

Fossil fuels are reaping $550 billion a year in subsidies and holding back investment in cleaner forms of energy, the International Energy Agency said.

President Barack Obama pledged deeper U.S. cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions and China will for the first time set a target for capping carbon emissions under an agreement between the world’s two biggest economies.

The world’s decision-makers must not let current events distract them from recognizing and addressing the longer-term signs of stress that are emerging in the global energy system, the International Energy Agency (IEA) warned today at the launch of its annual World Energy Outlook 2014 report in London.

The U.S. expects to earn $5 billion to $6 billion from a federal loan program, bolstering President Barack Obama’s decision to back low-carbon technologies.

In recent months, a number of initiatives aimed at speeding up the development of the wave energy sector have been launched in the U.S. and Europe. As part of the ongoing work to establish a viable United States wave energy industry, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and Sandia National Laboratories (SANDIA) are working on the creation of a sophisticated open-source modeling tool known as WEC-Sim — and the U.S. Department of Energy is also enlisting the coding community to help in its development. Meanwhile, the European WavePOD project is an industry-wide initiative that aims to solve the problem of converting captured wave energy into electricity by creating a "standardised self-contained offshore electricity generator for the wave industry."

President Barack Obama will pledge $3 billion to a United Nations climate-change fund that’s intended to help poor nations boost renewable energy and counter the ill effects of global warming.

According to the latest "Energy Infrastructure Update" report from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's (FERC) Office of Energy Projects, wind power provided over two-thirds (68.41 percent) of new U.S. electrical generating capacity in October 2014. Specifically, five wind farms in Colorado, Kansas, Michigan, Nebraska, and Texas came on line last month, accounting for 574 MW of new capacity.

The news about the Environmental Protection Agency’s plan to limit carbon pollution from existing power plants just got even better: the proposed Clean Power Plan (CPP) can save the power industry and its customers — us — as much as $2 to $4 billion in 2020 and $6 to 9 billion in 2030, while cleaning our air and modernizing the electricity sector.

The power sector crisis in Japan has entered a new stage. The recent refusal of Japanese utilities to grant grid access to new renewable energy projects should not be seen as a failure of Japan’s renewable energy policy, but as a consequential and necessary phase to extend Japan’s technological leadership into the power sector.

The Brazilian government is seeking to award contracts in an auction tomorrow for natural gas- and coal-fueled power plants, reversing a drive that previously favored renewable-energy projects. It would lead to the first new thermal plants in three years, after the government scaled back such projects and awarded wind contracts starting in 2009 and solar energy earlier this year.

A new report by utility and finance experts contains positive news for the environment, our air and our (and our utilities’) pocketbooks — the economics of electric power resources have made zero-emissions energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies the most financially attractive options to meet the nation’s future energy demands.

EON SE’s plan to spin off its fossil fuel plants marks a watershed moment in Germany’s renewables effort that will likely bolster the country’s already leading position in clean energy.

Germany’s biggest utility E.ON — long a pillar of the country’s fossil fuel and nuclear industry — dropped a bombshell on Europe’s business world with the announcement that the multinational was exiting the conventional energy market in favor of a new business model based on renewables, intelligent grid systems, energy management and other services. Indeed, the company seems finally to have drawn the logical consequences from the Energiewende, Germany’s renewable energy transition, after years of resisting the ambitious transformation of the nation’s energy supply.

While OPEC is helping drive down global prices for crude, it’s having less success squeezing the $250 billion clean power industry.

India, the world’s third-largest polluter, will spend at least $100 billion on climate-related projects but isn’t ready to follow China and the U.S., the top two emitters, in promising to limit its fossil-fuel emissions.

The siren call of 2020 corporate environmental sustainability goals is quickly getting louder, as corporate leaders realize they must go further today to achieve their sustainability targets for tomorrow. Increased use of renewable energy is an ambitious goal for some of the world’s largest companies, as 59 percent of the Fortune 100 and nearly two-thirds of the Global 100 have set GHG emissions reduction commitments, renewable energy commitments or both, according to a recent Ceres’ report, Power Forward: Why the World’s Largest Companies Are Investing in Renewable Energy. One global consumer products company, for example, plans to derive 30 percent of its energy from clean sources by 2020.

Warren Buffett wants to tell you the best time to wash your clothes. Or at least his energy company in the U.K does. Buffett’s Northern Powergrid Holdings Co. is working with Siemens AG to test a so-called smart grid that has the ability to control when consumer appliances will be used in the home.

Renewable energy stakeholders are well aware that clean energy is slowly but steadily transforming the energy landscape and that message couldn’t have been more clear at the recently concluded Power-Gen International, the largest show for the traditional power generation industry. Since all forms of power generation are represented at the show through the four co-located conferences, PennWell calls the second week in December "Power Generation Week."

Japan’s trade ministry is setting stricter rules for production and sales of renewable energy in what it says is a drive to speed up development of projects and ensure stable power supply.

The U.S. Department of Commerce just announced that it will add high tariffs for solar modules imported from China. The Canadian government is also investigating the adoption of similar measures, following recent complaints filed by Ontario-based solar manufacturers. With the solar industry in hypergrowth, it’s not a surprise that these governments are interested in boosting new jobs, protecting their economies, and fostering the solar sector. The problem is that tariffs are a short-sighted approach that actually attack the future of North American solar on its home soil, and likely destroy more jobs than they create.

Developers, manufacturers, investors and other renewable energy industry stakeholders need to know where the next big market is going to be so that they can adjust their business decisions accordingly.

The Detroit Power Outage brought eight hours of hardship to Detroit on Dec. 2 — hardship that could have been averted with microgrids.

Developers, manufacturers, investors and other renewable energy industry stakeholders need to know where the next big market is going to be so that they can adjust their business decisions accordingly.

Earlier this month, when EPA proposed a new health-protective air quality standard for the pollutants that form “ozone,” some critics predictably pounced on it as another example of a long string of “job-killing EPA regulations.” Yet last week, we learned that the U.S. economy created about 320,000 new jobs in November, and average wages are starting to rise as the labor market tightens.

All of us here at RenewableEnergyWorld.com would like to wish everyone a very merry Christmas and a happy holiday season.

Developers, manufacturers, investors and other renewable energy industry stakeholders need to know where the next big market is going to be so that they can adjust their business decisions accordingly.

We here at RenewableEnergyWorld.com would like to send a big "thank you" to our blogging community. Year after year, bloggers contribute content that is filled with valuable insights, up-to-date news, innovative project highlights and cool new technology updates. RenewableEnergyWorld.com bloggers are truly a crucial part of our website.

Developers, manufacturers, investors and other renewable energy industry stakeholders need updates on the latest and greatest finance mechanisms available today. Since 2003, global consultancy Ernst & Young has released its Country Attractiveness Indices, which ranks global renewable energy markets by analyzing investment strategies and resource availability.

Developers, manufacturers, investors and other renewable energy industry stakeholders need to know where the next big market is going to be so that they can adjust their business decisions accordingly.

The online community of readers who visit RenewableEnergyWorld.com is an important aspect of the news and information that we offer renewable energy stakeholders. We often post news that we feel will get people to view important topics from new angles, offering insights and opinions about technology, policy and more. Often that leads to engaging and informative discussions that add even more value to the article that we have posted.

Serbia seeks to unblock investment in renewable energy after adopting legislation that opens gas and power markets in line with European Union guidelines.

At the close of each year, we like to take a look back to see which stories made an impact on our readers. This year's most read articles show the many twists and turns that the industry took this year and reveal interesting trends for us as editors and for other industry insiders.

Developers, manufacturers, investors and other renewable energy industry stakeholders need to know where the next big market is going to be so that they can adjust their business decisions accordingly.