Tag: CO2 targets

The European Parliament’s environment committee yesterday (24 April) voted through a firm carbon emissions target for Europe’s passenger cars to reach by 2020, and a ballpark figure for 2025.

Volkswagen, the world's third largest carmaker, has joined its compatriot Daimler in deciding not to use a new air-conditioning (A/C) refrigerant developed by U.S. firms Honeywell and DuPont in its cars, choosing a CO2-based system instead.

SPECIAL REPORT: An ambitious but little known set of UN sustainable energy goals for 2020 aims to double global improvements in energy efficiency and renewable energy capacity, and provide universal access to modern energy services. But achieving this last target would cause a carbon emissions explosion, according to a senior UN economist.

Carbon trading schemes are fast sprouting across the planet as a market-based way of addressing rising greenhouse gas emissions. But advocates should be prepared for powerful business backlashes, Chang-beom Kim, the South Korean ambassador to the EU, warned a Brussels round table of business leaders and envoys on 19 November.

EU Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard has put plans on hold to make international airlines pay for their carbon emissions, so as to give time for the UN airlines body to devise an alternative global scheme that could avoid a damaging trade dispute.

Günther Oettinger, the EU’s energy commissioner, greeted the launch of a new coalition promoting renewables and gas power with a call to set fixed emissions reductions and clean energy targets for 2030.

European biofuel mandates are unlikely to deliver a significant reduction and could even increase greenhouse gas emissions unless land use factors are considered, says a study by the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT).

The European Commission's proposal to fix the beleaguered Emissions Trading System (ETS) today (25 July) will include scenarios for ‘backloading’ a massive 400 million, 900 million, or 1.2 billion carbon allowances, EurActiv understands.

EXCLUSIVE: At least one of the coal plants for which Poland is requesting €7 billion of free carbon allowances under the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS)’s little-known ‘10c derogation’ does not exist, a EurActiv investigation has found.

The European Commission has yet to set a date for publishing plans to bolster the EU Emissions Trading System, but still aims to release them before the summer recess begins in August, a spokesman said yesterday (4 July).

Six NGOs are calling for the European Commission to propose a ban on some uses of the most potent greenhouse gas known to humankind, sulphur hexafluoride (SF6), after a new report found that existing alternative technologies were no more expensive.

Europe must agree 2030 milestones as soon as possible to spur investment in renewable energy, or green power growth will fizzle once firm policy runs out in 2020, the European Commission said on Wednesday (6 June) in its latest strategy statement.

The European Commission has drawn up a list of 14 industrial sectors that will be eligible for special state aid to compensate for the increased cost of electricity due to the European Emission Trading System (ETS), according to a draft paper seen by EurActiv.

Shell has joined with other ‘progressive’ businesses to lobby the EU for a much stronger carbon price to incentivise clean energy investments. But Graeme Sweeney insists that it will not compromise on its support for tar sands, gas, and opposition to new efficiency and renewables targets.

Analysts say that any one-off EU clearing of the massive glut of carbon permits now clogging the Emissions Trading System (ETS) is likely to lead to a ‘central bank' or other policy tool to manage future imbalances.

The use of middlemen to leverage private sector climate cash is putting investments at risk because of the rich world’s negligence in ensuring transparency and adequate monitoring, according to a new report by the European Network on Debt and Development (Eurodad).

Britain may have enough offshore shale gas to catapult it into the top ranks of global producers, energy experts now believe, and while production costs are still very high, new US technology should eventually make reserves commercially viable.

Ministers have been advised to allow the controversial practice of fracking for shale gas to be extended in Britain, despite it causing two earthquakes and the emergence of serious doubts over the safety of the wells that have already been drilled.

India will urge its airlines not to take part in the European Union Emissions Trading System (ETS), a senior government official said, the latest salvo in the row over an EU law requiring all flights in and out of Europe to pay for their emissions.

Nuclear plants have remained closed in Japan since the Fukushima disaster because of ‘nuclear-phobia’ among local communities, the Japanese trade envoy has told a meeting in Brussels.

Volkswagen has stunned Brussels by reconsidering its fierce opposition to EU automobile emissions targets, and promising to reduce its carbon emissions to 120 grams of CO2 per kilometre by 2015, a full 10 grams below the EU’s target.

A Czech bid for almost €2 billion of free allowances under the EU’s Emissions Trading System (ETS) – equal to almost half Prague’s 2012 budget deficit – has drawn heavy fire from Brussels and European environmentalists, who say it will do little to combat CO2 emissions. 

A senior Shell executive has called for “decisive action” to recalibrate the Emissions Trading System (ETS), as a key European Parliament committee prepares to vote on a ‘set-aside’ of EU allowances in a bid to raise the carbon price.

Eight of Europe’s largest energy companies have launched a clean energy alliance with a call for the EU to set legally enforceable targets for 2030 in emissions reductions, renewable energy and energy efficiency.