Articles related to "EU climate change policies"

Fears about climate change are overblown and shifting weather patterns and rising sea levels should be considered an engineering problem, said the head of the world's largest oil refiner, ExxonMobil.

In an attempt to prepare the ground for a comprehensive EU climate-change adaptation strategy for after 2013, the European Commission has proposed to review key sectoral policies by 2012, to determine the potential impacts and costs of climate change for different economic sectors.

The EU 15 should comfortably reach their collective Kyoto target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 8% by 2012 compared to 1990 levels, but only if good performers cover for laggard states, new projections show.

EU member states have made progress in cutting their greenhouse gas emissions to be on course to meet their Kyoto targets, according to data released for 2006. But the Commission is particularly concerned about emissions rises in the new member states.

The European Parliament's Temporary Committee on Climate Change has warned that current climate change mitigation policies are insufficient and criticised the various "scientifically unsubstantiated efforts" to discredit studies of its causes and effects.

As the UN climate talks get underway in Bali, the EU has put forward an ambitious wish list for the negotiations inspired by the bloc's performance under the Kyoto Protocol. But doubts remain about the level of commitment that can be expected from the world's other large CO2 emitters.

Natural resources and habitats continue to shrink at an alarming rate while atmospheric CO2 concentrations rise steadily, according to a new report on the Earth's 'vital signs' by the Worldwatch Institute.

More than 20 people have died in south-eastern Europe as a result of unusually high temperatures and forest fires, intense rains and floods have hit the UK, and a tornado was reported in Poland amid growing concerns about the impacts of climate change.

A large majority of MEPs wish to end the monthly 'travelling circus' between Brussels and Strasbourg, and have called for a single-seat European Parliament, when polled by a group of fellow MEPs. 

Greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions decreased by 0.8% in 2005, according to an annual report by the European Environment Agency (EEA). While the Commission welcomed the decrease and called for more action, environmental groups saw the modest figure as a sign that the EU is not likely to achieve the emission-reduction targets agreed in Kyoto in 1992.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel will meet with US President George W. Bush ahead of the G8 summit in a last-ditch attempt to convince him to commit to key targets and timetables for fighting global warming.

Political instability, failed states, wars over scarce resources and millions of climate refugees are some of the 'doom-and-gloom' scenarios in a report published by a leading US military think-tank.

EU Environment Commissioner Dimas was the only speaker to go beyond diplomatic politeness at the opening session of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in Brussels.

The Commission will on 28 March 2007 present ideas for 'green taxes' to save energy and cut greenhouse-gas emissions. It says that such an ecological tax reform could increase the bloc's competitiveness by shifting the burden away from labour taxes.

In the wake of the EU's 'Green' Spring Summit, the UK government has announced plans for binding five-year climate-change budgets, with the objective of reducing greenhouse-gas emissions 60% by 2050.

The Global Roundtable on Climate Change, a coalition of leaders of several large corporations, has urged politicians to take urgent world-wide action to fight climate change.

The UN-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is meeting in Paris this week to hammer out a new agreement on the science behind climate change amid renewed controversy over future global warming.

The Stern Report on the costs of climate change has stirred the EU's political elites. But are the calculations behind it serious? EurActiv examines the climate sceptics' arguments.

With existing policies in place, only the UK and Sweden will be able to deliver on their pledge to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, according to new figures by the European Environment Agency (EEA).

By setting greenhouse gas reduction targets of 15-30% by 2020 and 60-80% by 2050, environment ministers went much further than the Commission when discussing the EU's climate change policy post-2012.

A new scientific report claims that political leaders have less than 10 years to take drastic measures to prevent global disasters as a result of climate change. The report is likely to raise the anger of climate change sceptics in the US and Europe.

In its latest report on greenhouse gas emissions trends, the European Environment Agency remains surprisingly optimistic about the chances of the EU reaching its 8% reduction target, even though real 2002 figures published in July only indicate an achieved 2.9% reduction below base-year level.

The 10th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP-10), from 6-17 December, will focus on the post-2012 carbon reduction targets and bringing developing countries into the process.

Ministers, business leaders and scientists meeting in Berlin affirmed that the threat from climate change was "real, serious and urgent" and vowed to take leadership to curb global warming.

The ratification of the Kyoto protocol by the Russian lower assembly means the greenhouse gas reduction pact can enter into force in three months.

Depending on 'geo-engineering' to tackle global warming is a "dangerous delusion" which "may not provide substantial benefits and will undoubtedly be accompanied by unforeseen adverse consequences", writes Vicki Arroyo in an article for the Pew Center on Global Climate Change.

Peter Goldmark (Environmental Defence NGO) and Ernst-Ulrich von Weizsäcker (Dean of Environmental Science and Management at the University of California), in this paper for the Bertelsmann Stiftung think-tank, compare the measures taken so far by Europe and the US to reduce carbon emissions.

With a green paper published in June 2007, the European Commission has started a public consultation on policy measures needed to lessen the impacts and costs of increasing climate change-related calamities such as floods and forest fires.