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Thursday, January 31
World: Not switching to renewable energy costs $9bn a day as fossil fuels are burned that could otherwise be used as an industrial resource for plastics and other petrochemicals. A study by the World Future Council calls for the cost of not switching to clean energy sources to be factored in when assessing the expense of switching to renewable energy. (World Future Council)
Austria: Arnold Schwarzenegger will open the Regions of Climate Action (R20) conference in Vienna later today. The group which brings together local governments was founded by former Californian governor in 2010. EU President Jose Manuel Barroso will give the keynote speech ahead of sessions on clean energy, climate finance and technology. (R20Vienna)
Mali: Development aid and climate change projects are being held up by escalating violence in Mali with many groups pulling workers out of the country entirely. Demba Cisse, of the aid group Afrique Verte, said the conflict had forced the group to postpone a project distributing climate resilient seeds to farmers. (AllAfrica)
Greenland: Aarhus University in Denmark is to build a new research station to replace the wooden shack that is currently home to climate monitoring equipment in greenland. “It is essential to investigate what kind of Arctic we will see in the future and how that will affect the rest of the world,” said Henrik Skov, a senior researcher from Aarhus University and the Arctic Research Centre. (The Copenhagen Post)
EU: An audience of EU officials have been told to back tree planting projects in Africa’s drylands if they want to boost political stability in the region. “The pattern for terrorism overlaps perfectly with the drylands. These regions are bottom of the human development index, bottom of the hydrological index,” said Dennis Garrity UN Drylands Ambassador. “There is extreme food insecurity in Mali, Niger and the Horn of Africa.” (EurActiv)