Tag: climate change

Norway and Finland are the countries that will be least affected by climate change, while Bangladesh and India are most at risk, according to an index released yesterday (20 October).

Environment ministers are meeting today (14 October) in Luxembourg to set out the EU's strategy for the UN climate conference in Cancún at the end of the year. No decision is expected on whether to raise the bloc's CO2 emission target.

China hit back on Saturday (9 September) at US claims it was shirking in the fight against climate change, likening the criticisms to a mythic pig preening itself.

In an attempt to rebalance the debate on global warming, the German research branch of Deutsche Bank has commissioned a report that refutes the claims of climate sceptics.

The European Commission has started working on climate targets above and beyond 2020, arguing that they will be instrumental in fending off competition from leading clean-tech industries in China and elsewhere, according to EU Climate Action Commissioner Connie Hedegaard.

Working shorter hours could reduce the burden our lifestyles impose on the environment while offering solutions to the mass unemployment caused by the economic crisis, according to new research.

Although the EU has been the driving force behind the 'two-degree target' in the global climate debate, it should scrap this goal and instead advocate more flexible benchmarks, writes Oliver Geden, senior research fellow at the Berlin-based German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), in an opinion piece sent exclusively to EurActiv.

Recent spates of extreme weather should be attributed to climate change, according to Stefan Rahmstorf, Professor of Physics of the Oceans at Potsdam University and Department Head for Climate Impact Research at the Potsdam Institute.

Led by cities, EU regions are playing a frontline role in the fight against climate change as they make key investment decisions regarding the new generation of clean energy and transport projects.

Warnings about the effects of climate change often amount to mere scaremongering, writes author Bjørn Lomborg, head of the Copenhagen Consensus Centre and adjunct professor at the Copenhagen Business School.

The UN's climate agency has for the first time detailed contingency options if the world cannot agree a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, whose present round expires in 2012 with no new deal in sight.

Ministers from the UK, France and Germany have issued a joint call for the EU to raise its emission reduction target to 30% by 2020.

Over the next few decades, investment in water infrastructure as a whole will have to increase to satisfy growing demand – something that will require rapid, determined action by governments and financial cooperation with the private sector, write Eric Heymann of Deutsche Bank Research, Deirdre Lizio of the Robert Bosch Stiftung and Markus Siehlow of the Dresden University of Technology in a June report.

Reviewers of carbon-offsetting projects in developing countries under the UN's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) were given poor grades for the second year in a row by green group WWF.

'Don't tax what you earn, tax what you burn'. In an interview with EurActiv, EU Climate Action Commissioner Connie Hedegaard throws her weight behind an EU carbon tax and speaks about Europe's efforts to stay ahead of the game in international climate negotiations.

The European Commission and the European Investment Bank (EIB) yesterday (14 June) agreed to explore a joint climate finance initiative to provide funding for developing countries. They also made public a political agreement on mobilising billions for clean energy projects from the EU's Emissions Trading Scheme reserves.

Two weeks of climate talks in Bonn saw developing countries launch a new push to agree on stricter targets for halting global warming, only for the deal to be killed by Saudi Arabia. The blow came as new data showed that loopholes in pledges would allow rich countries to increase their emissions. EurActiv reports from Bonn.

As the latest round of talks draw to a close, outgoing UN climate chief Yvo de Boer warned of slow progress in the negotiations, leaving his successor with the daunting task of concluding a new global climate treaty in 2011. EurActiv reports from Bonn.

The EU last week (3 June) took the first step to bring clarity to international climate financing pledges by outlining at the Bonn climate talks how it intends to implement its funding commitment to help developing countries fight global warming. But poor countries are still concerned that the money will be recycled from existing aid budgets.

Providing potentially the strongest link between the EU's emissions trading scheme and sectoral approaches, sectoral benchmarks can be used for setting caps and free allocations, or can become a catalyst for linking the world's carbon markets, writes Noriko Fujiwara, head of climate change and a research fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), in a May special report.

France and Germany yesterday joined the growing ranks of European countries opposed to making further unilateral moves on climate change, as the European Commission today plans to make the case for raising the EU’s greenhouse gas reduction goal from -20% to -30% by 2020.

The value of forests is growing as a result of climate policies, but the complexity of carbon markets coupled with the effects of the financial crisis are deterring investment, investors and analysts said in London on Thursday.

There are a number of possible methods to include industry in sectoral approaches to tackling climate change – including participation in a consultative body based on a public-private partnership, writes Noriko Fujiwara, research fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), in a May special report.

Debate on how to cut carbon dioxide emissions has been hotting up in Europe, in part due to the international community's failure to ink a successor deal to the Kyoto Protocol at the UNFCCC conferences in Copenhagen and Durban. But what are the options - and obstacles to a new pact?