“Political pressure on governments and utilities to refrain from building new coal-fired power plants is rising across Europe. Citizens no longer want to have them in their neighbourhood. As a result as many as seven projects have been abandoned in Germany only in the course of 2009, the last most recentlymost recently in Lubmin in [...]

The EU Commission has just published its economic outlook for 2010/2011.It is a sobering document. The economic situation in 2010 is expected to stabilise, after a 4 percent GDP decline in 2009, the deepest Europe has ever experienced since the end of WW II.
Europe, except the new member states, must learn to get used to [...]

The European Commission has given green light to making available € 1 billion for funding six “clean” power stations trying different technologies for capturing and underground storing of C02 emissions (CCS) across Europe.
It is to be hoped that the European Parliament will rapidly approve the funding proposal despite objections from green NG0s.
In order be able [...]

Whatever the outcome of the Copenhagen Climate Conference, humanity will need a simple and effective tool for making fossil energy increasingly more expensive and renewable energies relatively cheaper.
An excise tax on coal, oil and gas would constitute such a tool.
• The tax should be specific and not ad valorem, levied at the import or the [...]

Humanity is at the very beginning of a long process which will lead one day to the electric car. This is the impression one gathers from the 2009 International Automobile Exhibition in Frankfurt.
At present, no more than a few thousand electric cars are running on the roads or streets in Japan, Europe and the USA. [...]

The newly elected Japanese candidate for prime minister has demonstrated political courage by raising Japanese climate targets for 2020. In his capacity as leader of the Democratic Party, he has indicated that Japan should reduce its C02 emissions by 25 percent over 1990 rather than only 8 percent, as proposed by his predecessor in government.
This [...]

Whatever conclusions will be adopted by the international community in Copenhagen it is imperative to insist on practical follow-up and effective measures to be taken by each of the 200-odd governments to obtain medium-term reduction of global C02 emissions.
Too much time has been wasted on optimal targets for reducing green house gases, preparing for warmer [...]

The G8+5 meeting in l`Aquila was disappointing for all those who had hoped the main green house gas emitter countries, which account for 80 percent of global C02 emissions, would pave the way for a successful outcome of the crucial Copenhagen climate Conference in December.
Unfortunately, the gulf between developed and emerging countries remains wider than [...]

The Middle East oil/gas producer countries- GCC, Iraq and Iran - are among the big C02 emitters on the planet. Jointly they are responsible for more than four percent of global emissions - more than India - due to the nature of their industries, their high living standards, low energy prices and an excessive waste [...]

At their meeting in Kuala Lumpur the IATA members have committed to achieve “C02 neutral” growth by 2020. Even if this commitment is vague, the fact that the airline industry has started to engage in a discussion on how to cope with climate change is by itself a signal that it sees the [...]