• 1) A UK company is planning to build the largest photovoltaic plant in Ghana, Africa - The Nzema Project is an ambitious, privately funded plan from a UK company to build a $400 million solar power plant in Ghana. The solar power plant will be the largest in Africa, and will be used to provide electricity for 100,000 homes. It is hoped that by building the plant, solar energy prices will be reduced and provide an incentive for more people to use this instead of fossil fuels. 
• Interestingly, this followed on from another news headline, where the UK pledged to contribute GBP 133 million more to help Africa tackle climate change. The UK promised in the UN Climate Change conference in Doha to give more aid and more money to "help Africa" build more solar power plants and develop it's renewable energies. 
• The question is three-folds: 
• 1) Why do we not see any stricter policies in the UK (or even other nations in the Global North) about climate change ?Instead, we see a prime example of Said's "Us versus Them" divide-  the Global North is pledging to help the Global South, in particular Africa, to combat "climate change" by giving aid, money and in many cases grabbing green land. To me, it seems like the focus is skewed - why is the UK focusing externally on Africa instead of looking within itself and trying to improve it's own energy mix ? Nearly 50% of UK's energy mix consists of non-renewables like coal and nuclear. Further, the UK has contributed immensely to CO2 emissions during the industrial revolution and economic take-off. 
• 2) Is this an attempt to assert UK's western superiority and divert attention away from the UK's own energy and CO2 problems ? Perhaps this is indadvertedly the case; as I have understood from the article titled " A review of recent developments in climate change science - understanding future change in the large-scale climate system", although climate change is a pressing issue that deserves critical attention, the uncertainty, lack of accurate models and lack of understanding for these complex physical and natural feedback systems means policy making is difficult. This continuing focus on the global, e.g. helping other nations or Global South to convert to greener energy sources, only leads us nowhere in terms of action. Countries should focus inward, not outward, for effective solutions. 
• 3) Is the PV plant in Ghana going to be sustainable ? Will it benefit the locals ? What are the true reasons why this UK company is investing in Ghana ? Is this another form of green-grabbing ? The energy will power 100,000 homes, but which ones ? The richer locals can afford it, but what about poorer populations ? Will this privatisation only serve to increase inequalities ? And also, there is a risk of the plant deteriorating after a few years, or simply not benefitting locals as the energy will be transported away from Ghana. The sun is also a variable and depends on the weather. We still cannot store solar energy effectively - what happens at night ? Solar developments, I believe, has not gone far enough yet to be truly effective and cheaper than coal. 

• 2) Green talks in Doha failing as countries blame each other - UK's Lord Nicholas Stern has said that the developing countries should start cutting their emissions seriously rather than refusing to act, whilst China and other rapidly developing nations have said that the Global North should be more responsible for their previous contributions during the 20th century era. 
• Doha's UN conference seems to be leading to no valid policy changes surrounding climate change. Countries are pointing fingers and there's no actions or conclusive declarations. 
• I think ultimately, there needs to be global altruism to fix this problem. We are asking people and individuals to change their comfortable, consumerism ways of living (and who doesn't enjoy this lifestyle!) and change altogether. What can and will address this global problem is, in my opinion, if everyone developed a heightened sense of altruism and make changes, even though the immediate "rewards" will not be visible to them, maybe not even in their lifetimes. 
• Perhaps the Global North should lower their high standards of living; the Global South should raise their environmental awareness and self-sustaining abilities, and the two should meet somewhere in the middle. 

• 3) Pandas in Edinburgh Zoo boosts sales by 50% - Today marked the 1st anniversary that two pandas were shipped from China to the Scotland zoo where they served as primary attractions. 
• This news just reminds me of how humans are spending many resources protecting large mammals that aren't necessarily essential to biodiversity. Large mammals are higher up in food chains, and their extinction will have least impacts than smaller organisms from lower down the chain. Humans have intrinsic and ideologies about large mammals, and we protect them for aesthetic and economical (tourism) reasons more than for the well-being of the environment.