International Rivers, Rivers without Boundaries and other partners
are seeking your support in a global call for a just and green recovery
at  www.Rivers4Recovery.org. 

Rivers for Recovery Report

This global action focuses on calling out and confronting efforts to use the
post-COVID-19 pandemic economic recovery to push for  more destructive
dams and prop up the ailing hydropower industry.  At the same time, it
highlights alternative pathways for a truly “green recovery” through river
protection and other nature-based solutions, valuing community-based
initiatives, that should be supported by governments and 
financiers. 

We send the global call to financiers, governments of dam-building countries, international …

SHORT SOBERING REPORT

Enashimskaya Hydro in Siberia

Since the Report by World Commission on Dams (Nov.
2000) for 20 years there has been relative consensus that large hydro is
associated with excessive social and environmental impacts and should be given
no green ticket into sustainable future. Somehow it was simultaneously
stipulated that “small hydro is OK” and it took two decades and thousands of
ruined rivers to start questioning this type of “green energy”.

Major international energy organizations(like the the IEA or IRENA) have already stopped dividing hydropower into “small” and “large” about 3-5 years ago as it …

International Renewable Energy
Agency published RE costs data for 2019.

Costs of energy change 2010-2019

Hydropower’s share of global renewable energy capacity fell from 76% (925 GW) in 2010 to just under 47% in 2019. Global installed hydropower capacity (excluding pumped hydro) was 1 189 GW at the end of 2019. It is the only widespread non-fossil energy source for which both cost of construction and cost of electricity (LCOE) increased over past decade.

Solar
photovoltaic (PV) shows the sharpest cost decline over 2010-2019 at 82%,
followed by concentrating solar power (CSP) at 47%, onshore …

New Report of Save the Tigris Campaign

The Rivers without Boundaries is proud to announce publication of the first ever comprehensive report on dams in Kurdistan Region of Iraq, prepared by the Save the Tigris Campaign, which we are the happy participants of.

According to the UNDP, the water discharge of the Tigris-Euphrates Rivers is set to decrease by 50% between 2009 and 2025. The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) which governs the KRI recognizes water security as a priority. To tackle the issues of climate change, upstream dam construction and mismanagement, the …

The new Sustainable Recovery Plan
released by the International Energy Agency in response to the Covid-19
pandemic and economic crisis being felt across the world has recommended hydropower
and nuclear reactor modernization as one of key policy measures. The plan seeks
to show governments what they can do to boost economic growth, create jobs and
put global greenhouse gas emissions into structural decline. It sets out over
30 policy measures to be carried out over the next three years requiring about
US$1 trillion of additional annual investment (from both the public and private
sectors).

Figure: Annual average …

The International Hydropower Association (IHA) published its 7th “Hydropower Status Report”. Report illustrates further decline of annually installed hydropower capacity, with “optimistic” estimate of only 15 GW added worldwide in 2019. We still tend to believe that the 12.5 GW figure from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) is more accurate, because random check on the IHAs figures shows that to cheer-up report readership results for some countries were exaggerated: by 90 MW in Russia, by 250 MW in Ethiopia, and by 400 MW in Tajikistan, etc. However, our …