Tag: green-house emissions

The EU expects China and other emerging economies to cut their emissions by up to a third compared to business-as-usual scenarios, Swedish Environment Minister Andreas Carlgren said yesterday (1 September).

Evidence that methane, a dangerous greenhouse gas, is escaping from the warming Arctic seabed makes securing a new international agreement to slash global-warming gas emissions even more urgent, scientists warn.

The ongoing economic recession is set to reduce EU carbon dioxide emissions more dramatically than expected in 2009, but carbon prices are expected to continue to rise, according to a Deutsche Bank report published yesterday (5 May).

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.

A business group consisting of some of Britain's largest corporations is calling for a cross-party effort to deliver the necessary "transformational change" across the economy to meet the threat of climate change. 

The EU ETS has been a relative success considering the challenges it has faced and should serve as an example in the current US climate policy debate, argue Denny Ellerman and Paul Joskow in a May 2008 report for the Pew Center on Global Climate Change.

Atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane and hydrofluorocarbons had already reached critical levels in 2005, ten years earlier than expected, according to climate scientist Tim Flannery who was citing figures due to be released by the UN next month.

German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel has proposed that, in future, all greenhouse-gas emission permits under the EU emissions-trading scheme (EU ETS) must be auctioned off rather than allocated. Currently, the system allows for only 10% of permits to be auctioned.

Only a minority of member states are planning to use the Kyoto flexible mechanisms in a substantial way, says the European Environment Agency director Jacqueline McGlade in an interview with EurActiv.