Jeep Avenger vs Kia Niro EV vs Volkswagen ID.3: low-cost compact EVs duke it out
Electric car prices are already being slashed to meet new sales targets. We line up Jeep, Kia and VW rivals to see what’s on offer
Yoonmi Nam Venerates the Insignificant with Her Ceramic Sculptures of Disposable Containers
Most of us quickly dispose of late-night takeout evidence or the abruptly empty box from the cookies we polished off in a single sitting, but Yoonmi Nam preserves the remnants of her consumption in unforgiving ceramic.
The South Korean artist (previously) has spent the last few years collecting single-use containers like aluminum pans, egg cartons, and styrofoam cups that she slip casts, creating archeological sculptures of their interiors. “I am a collector of trash,” Nam says about her works, which put our relationship to consumerism and disposability front and center. More
Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $5 per month. The article Yoonmi Nam Venerates the Insignificant with Her Ceramic Sculptures of Disposable Containers appeared first on Colossal.
SA poo plant undergoes historic upgrade
SA Water has just completed the single largest concrete pour at South Australia’s Bolivar Wastewater Treatment Plant — part of a $64 million upgrade that will create a new inlet structure at the facility.
More than 310 cubic metres of concrete was poured into the steel-lined base to create the inlet’s foundation, involving the coordination of around 50 mixing trucks across the complex 15-hour pour.
Bolivar’s new inlet is being built to increase the plant’s capacity to receive and process higher projected flow rates of sewage as Adelaide’s population grows.
SA Water’s Senior Manager of Capital Delivery, Peter Seltsikas, said along with the slab pour, the project has achieved a number of other milestones, including delivery of new screens that will be retrofitted on the inlet and act as the plant’s first line of defence, capturing and removing inorganic material.
“We’ve also recently started replacing three of our existing inlet pipes — which transfer raw sewage from across metropolitan Adelaide to the plant — while they remain temporarily connected to the existing inlet structure,” Seltsikas said.
Bolivar’s capacity to receive sewage from the network will more than double to about 630 million litres per day once the new inlet is operational.
A 20-tonne tower crane was deployed next to the inlet’s concrete slab to help crews lift equipment and pipes into place, along with large panels to facilitate concrete form work.
“Once the new inlet is complete, we’ll change the connections over and construct an additional three inlet pipes to accommodate increased flows that will come into the plant as the local population grows,” Seltsikas said.
“Despite ticking off the project’s single largest concrete pour, we anticipate we’ll need a further 1990 cubic metres, with our team now working on forming the concrete roof structure, overflow channels and walls.”
Seltsikas said SA Water hoped to begin installing the inlet’s mechanical equipment in the next few months. This process will involve eight customised screens, major support steel structure and ancillary items such as penstocks and stoplogs that control and isolate the flow of sewage.
To accommodate future projected flows, Bolivar’s capacity to receive sewage from the network will more than double to around 630 million litres per day once the new inlet is operational.
Top image caption: More than 310 cubic metres of concrete was poured into the steel-lined base to create the inlet’s foundation across the 15-hour operation.
Climate Finance For Low Emissions Agriculture In Sub-Saharan Africa
Climate Finance For Low Emissions Agriculture In Sub-Saharan Africa
jschoshinski
Fri, 02/09/2024 – 21:00
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The USAID Africa Trade and Investment Activity partnered with Open Capital (OCA) and the Climate Policy Initiative (CPI) to inform the design of catalytic interventions to scale climate financing for low-emissions agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). This work included a thorough landscape analysis of climate financing flows specifically targeting agriculture in SSA. This analysis evaluated the effectiveness of climate mitigation and adaptation financing and the funding partners involved, as well as the primary barriers to increasing climate financing on the continent. The Climate Finance Innovation for Agriculture Report builds on insights from extensive consultations with a broad range of key ecosystem stakeholders and comprehensive desktop research, this report identifies intervention opportunities to address barriers to climate finance flows, including financing, governance, skills and knowledge, and agribusiness barriers.
The Climate Finance Toolbox provides a set of foundational resources to support USAID Country Missions in accelerating the flow of climate finance in their respective countries in SSA.
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Introduction to the Landscape of Climate Finance for Agriculture
Introduction to the Climate Finance Landscape: This document summarizes the context of climate finance for sub-Saharan Africa, including various instruments, approaches, challenges, opportunities, outcomes, and support requirements to inform potential interventions for future agriculture programs and projects with a climate finance focus.
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How-to Guide 1: Building a Climate Finance Roadmap
Developing Climate Finance Roadmaps: This document offers a set of guidelines for USAID country Missions developing customized climate finance roadmaps for the agriculture sector to accelerate the flow of climate finance within their respective countries or regions. This guide includes a step-by-step process for identifying barriers to climate finance flows, developing corresponding interventions, managing stakeholder engagement approaches, and incorporating milestones, timelines, and responsibilities to ultimately scale climate finance flows.
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How-to Guide 2: Supporting Development of Climate Finance Projects in Agriculture
Supporting the Development of Climate Finance Projects in Agriculture: This document provides guidance to USAID country Missions seeking to assist diverse stakeholders in developing climate-positive agriculture projects. Such projects involve avoiding or removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, preserving biodiversity, sustainably managing of natural resources, and improving the livelihoods of the local communities engaged in climate-related interventions.
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How-to Guide 3: Carbon Markets for Agriculture 101
Carbon Markets for Agriculture 101: This document serves as a foundational resource for understanding, assessing, and enabling the growth of carbon markets in agriculture within Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). This document summarizes key opportunities, challenges, and considerations for Missions to consider when developing carbon projects in SSA.
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How-to Guide 4: Working with Local Financial Institutions to Integrate Climate Lending
Working with Local Financial Institutions: This document offers guidance to USAID country Missions on crucial considerations when assisting local financial institutions in improving climate-specific lending in agriculture. Key areas covered include the development of effective risk assessment and mitigation techniques, as well as innovative financial instruments and structures that can encourage lending for climate-positive projects.
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Digital Tools and Resources for Climate Finance for Agriculture
Digital tools for climate finance for agriculture in SSA: This document provides a list of digital resources and platforms that support efforts to accelerate climate finance flows in the agriculture sector in Sub-Saharan Africa. The resources include interactive tools for assessing the impact of climate financing, training resources for enhancing climate-related and financial knowledge, and a directory of key networks for potential collaboration and information exchange.
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Climate Finance
Could industrial digital technology make Australia's biggest cities better places to be?
As the population continues to grow, we need to get smarter about how we manage our major urban centres.
Late January saw the country’s population hit 27 million, more than 30 years earlier than was predicted in the federal Treasury’s 2002 Intergenerational Report.
By 2071, though, our numbers will have swelled to somewhere between 34.3 and 45.9 million people, the Australian Bureau of Statistics estimates.
Our big cities are getting bigger apace — Sydney’s and Melbourne’s populations should reach 6 million and 6.2 million respectively by 2031, according to the 2020 Population Statement.
Planning for a bigger future
Rapid growth can bring with it an array of issues, as McCrindle social researcher and demographer Mark McCrindle has pointed out.
“Road and public transport planning, land release, housing developments and infrastructure decisions are made with a view 20 years into the future. The problem of Australia’s population increases massively outstripping the predictions is that housing supply has been based on the wrong numbers. With the current growth, Australia will reach 50 million by 2054, 23 million more than forecasted just 22 years ago, and this highlights the significant challenges we face for infrastructure, resources and city planning,” he commented in a statement, following the announcement of the 27 million population milestone.
Rising to the planning challenge
Elected leaders and civic planners are on the frontline of both social evolution and the climate crisis; required to contend with the upsizing of our capital cities and major urban centres, and the enormous environmental challenge that represents, in intelligent, far-sighted ways.
Globally, cities account for 70% of emissions, with transport and buildings the biggest contributors, according to the World Economic Forum.
Containing and reducing those emissions is an urgent imperative, given the quality of life of millions of Australians is at stake and making smart, data-driven decisions is essential.
Little surprise, then, that a growing number of urban authorities are becoming alive to the fact that digital insights can, and should, be used to help manage complex interdependencies and deliver outcomes that benefit all segments of the population.
Tools to make the task easier
Deploying advanced industrial software makes the task of delivering urban development outcomes easier. The software can be used to create city planning and management eco-systems that minimise energy consumption (a must, given Australia’s ambitious Net Zero Emissions by 2050 target), improve efficiency and control maintenance expenses.
Intelligent, data-led tools make it possible to collate, visualise and analyse data from a wide range of civic services onto a single, unified backbone.
Having this holistic view allows planning teams to spot trends and predict operational challenges, while improving situational awareness and crisis responses, all from a single portal.
Together with other strategic measures — think community engagement, apposite policy settings and investment in critical infrastructure — it can help ensure our famously livable cities remain that way, even as they evolve and expand.
Putting vision into practice
Elsewhere in the world, forward thinking metropolises are already reaping the benefits of a data-first approach.
In Barcelona, a centrally coordinated control platform functions as a neural system for the city. Information is transmitted and received from a network of sensors, allowing planners to monitor and optimise urban operations in real time; switching off the irrigation systems in public parks, for example, when it begins to rain.
Closer to home, the Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation, in the Indian state of Maharashtra, has reduced its carbon footprint and improved the safety and wellbeing of the city’s two million residents by introducing smart metering across public facilities. Energy usage and emissions have dropped by between 15 and 20% as a result. Meanwhile, the syncing of traffic lights has reduced intracity congestion by up to 25% — a boon for pollution-conscious residents and for those seeking to get from A to B a little more quickly.
And in Seoul, home of the world’s longest metro system, a digitally driven predictive maintenance system is helping keep the trains running on time and the citizens out of private vehicles. Given transport comprises the largest share of energy-related emissions for nearly half the world’s countries, it’s a highly worthwhile investment in industrial technology that’s delivering for the residents of that city and the global community too.
Thinking big and doing more with data
Here in Australia, there are opportunities aplenty for public sector decision-makers to instigate similar initiatives; leveraging industrial big data, AI, the internet of things (IoT) and the cloud to solve our own urban challenges and ensure our big cities are sustainable and livable.
Creating powerful, connected industrial eco-systems is the first step towards optimising operations, reducing waste and enabling innovation to occur on the fly. Doing so may also help foster innovative public–private partnerships to develop civic infrastructure that enhances quality of life for Australia’s urban population.
If we’re serious about delivering a sustainable, low-carbon future for all Australians, it’s a journey our country can’t afford not to take.
Christine McNamara, Director of Sales, Pacific at AVEVA.
Top image credit: iStock.com/Adam Calaitzis