Tag: climate change

EU carbon prices briefly slid 40% to a record low after politicians opposed plans to support the market, raising concerns prices could hit zero and sending a warning to European governments to pull together in lowering carbon emissions.

SPECIAL REPORT / Heavy industries claim to be unfairly hit by rising energy prices caused by the EU's climate policies. But manufacturers are simultaneously being accused of profiteering from the bloc's Emissions Trading System (ETS) amidst controversy over the real impact of climate policies on industrial activity.

Senior climate scientists are linking global warming to the UK Met Office's announcement yesterday (3 January) that 2012 was England’s rainiest year since records began. 

Next year is likely to be one of the warmest on record with global temperatures 0.57 degrees above the long-term average, Britain's Met Office said in its annual year-ahead forecast.

European temperatures in the last decade were 1.3 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial average – the warmest since records began – according to new research by the European Environment Agency (EEA), the EU’s climate advisory body.

The European Commission's energy market communication, to be published on 15 November, indicates that there are major obstacles to the implementation of the internal energy market by the target date, 2014, writes Georg Zachmann.

Anthropogenic climate change has contributed to sea surface warming, influencing the intensity of storms like Hurricane Sandy, a leading climate scientist has told EurActiv.

If the European Commission is serious about tackling climate change it must set 2030 targets for renewable energies and energy savings, says Brook Riley.

With a trade dispute over subsidies, arms embargo and the market economy status looming in the background, EU and Chinese leaders ended their last summit with Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, making little progress on substance but promising to work towards an EU-China Investment agreement.

The growing row over biofuels is ready to flare up again with German researchers claiming to have found evidence that European-produced biodiesel does not meet the sustainability targets claimed by Brussels.

Sea ice in the Arctic is disappearing at a far greater rate than previously expected, according to data from the first purpose-built satellite launched to study the thickness of the Earth's polar caps.

German researchers have unveiled evidence suggesting that EU claims, according to which locally-produced rapeseed biodiesel cut back at least 38% of greenhouse gases (GHG) compared with fossil fuels,  are unfounded.

European climate policy has to be flexible with respect to the outcome of international negotiations as well as updates in the evaluation of climate change, says a Bruegel analysis.

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.

The world is on track for around four degrees Celsius of global warming under current carbon emissions trends, says the EU’s chief climate negotiator, a trajectory that some scientists say risks a planetary mass extinction event.

The world's oceans are turning acidic at what could be the fastest pace of any time in the past 300 million years, even more rapidly than during a monster emission of planet-warming carbon 56 million years ago, European and US scientists say in a new study.

As political and societal will gathers to massively cut carbon emissions over the next years, the value of carbon-intensive oil and gas firms is likely to plummet, potentially leaving taxpayers with the burden for bailing them out, argues Matthew Ulterino.

A huge pool of fresh water in the Arctic Ocean is expanding and could lower Europe’s temperature by causing a mild ocean current to slow down, British scientists say.

The Durban summit marked a breakthrough in introducing a new phase of international climate policy and it was the EU that paved the way for the others to follow its ambitious climate strategy, writes Connie Hedegaard, European Commissioner for Climate Action.

Climate negotiators agreed a pact on Sunday (11 December) that would for the first time force all the biggest polluters to take action on greenhouse gas emissions, but critics said the action plan was not aggressive enough to slow the pace of global warming.

Negotiators in Durban must put aside their national interests and come up with common targets on emission cuts and climate funding within the spirit of solidarity in order to achieve a climate breakthrough, argues Roeland Scholtalbers.

The European Parliament called yesterday (16 November) for the EU to have a leading role in the forthcoming UN climate change conference in Durban and to push for the extension of the Kyoto protocol unless a new legally binding deal is agreed.

Global warming is 'real' and temperatures have climbed steadily over the past decades, a long-awaited, independent study has found, refuting sceptics' claims that there isn't enough evidence to assert that the world climate is changing.

Energy Commissioner Günther Oettinger abandoned the proposal to oblige power companies to reduce customers' energy use, effectively gutting the EU's long-awaited Energy Efficiency Directive, argue Brook Riley and Erica Hope.