Renewable energy
Mountains play as key role in providing renewable energy, especially through hydropower, solar power, wind power and biogas for downstream cities and remote mountain communities.
Hydropower currently provides around a fifth of all electricity worldwide, and some countries rely almost exclusively on mountain regions for hydropower generation In Bolivia, Chile, Colombia and Peru, at least 95 percent of hydropower is generated in mountain regions.
Solar power can also be efficiently produced in mountains and other cold regions - contrary to popular belief. The Himalayas and Tropical Andes are particularly promising locations for the development of solar energy, where installations could produce approximately 20 percent more energy than they could at sea level. In Nepal, for example, almost all remote airports and telecommunication facilities are powered by solar energy; solar cookers are widely used in the mountain regions of China and India.
Wind power is a vast, but largely untapped source of potential sustainable energy in mountains. Even at lower elevations, the terrain and topography of mountains can create wind corridors with high wind speeds that are ideally suited for wind turbine development.
Sustainable energy brings benefits to human health, the mountain environment and global climate. Reduced dependency on firewood, for example, can lead to fewer respiratory diseases, improved water and soil conservation, and less black carbon (soot) in the atmosphere – one of the most widespread short-lived climate pollutants. However, many sustainable energy sources in mountains remain unused or underutilized.
CinemAmbiente Environmental Film FestivaleventSince its inception in 1998, the “CinemAmbiente” Environmental Film Festival has presented some of the best in environmental films. The festival seeks to address the myriad issues related to the environment, including pollution, consumerism, food, waste production and management, genetically modified organisms (GMO), sustainable development and climate change, with a...
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Mountains, one year after the Paris AgreementnewsOne year ago, on 22 April (Earth Day) 2016, 175 of the 197 Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) gathered at United Nations Headquarters in New York to sign the Paris Agreement, an international treaty to address climate change. As of today, one year after...
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Village for the Planet 2017eventMountain Partnership member Earth Day Italia Onlus, in collaboration with the Focolare Movement of Rome, is organizing the Villaggio per la Terra 2017, “Village for the Planet”, in celebration of Earth Day on 22 April. The event will take place in two locations in Rome, Italy: at the Terrazza...
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MRD calls for papers, mountain ecosystem linksnewsThe connections between food, water and energy constitute a complex system that interacts with mountain ecosystems and factors of change. Mountain Research and Development is looking for papers that assess experiences of negotiating synergies and trade-offs among water, energy and food that analyse the dynamic interplay between these...
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Mount Kilimanjaro Research Group MeetingeventThe interdisciplinary AfroMont-Mount Kilimanjaro Research Group meeting will bring together researchers working on African mountains. The conference theme will be "African mountain ecosystems under global change: Linking biodiversity, biotic interactions and biogeochemical ecosystem processes". The Mount Kilimanjaro research programme will host the meeting. Sessions for the research meeting will...
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Incentivizing Mountain Communities for Ecosystem Services in a Changing ClimateeventThe International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) and partners will host a special session on incentivizing mountain communities for ecosystem services in the context of a changing climate at the International Conference on Biodiversity, Climate Change Assessment and Impacts on Livelihoods, set to take place...
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