Tag: sustainability

A new report commissioned by the Greenland government has concluded that the country has full sovereignty over commodities trading, including for uranium, which is regulated by international treaties on non-nuclear proliferation.

Politicians are likely to be influenced by the electorate’s demographic power structures. With European societies aging rapidly, how are policy makers going to overcome this bias? Invest tax revenues in intergenerational measures and allow parents to cast proxy votes for their children, says Daniel Schraad-Tischler.

The European Parliament has voted to limit the use of fuels made from food crops because of fears that biofuels can push up grain prices or damage the climate, further undermining the once booming industry.

EXCLUSIVE / José Bové, the famously outspoken French MEP and Farmers Union leader, has condemned US officials for a "lack of transparency" in demanding secrecy in transatlantic trade talks with their EU counterparts.

Policy makers, business and industry are starting to wake up to the idea of supporting sustainable diets. Action is already late but we can still act now to show people a way to lead healthier lives in keeping with the planet’s abundance of natural resources, writes Tony Long.

A critical biofuels vote in Strasbourg on Wednesday (11 September) is expected to be tight but Corinne Lepage, the French Liberal MEP with the lead on the dossier, is "cautiously confident" of securing an agreement over an issue that has threatened to fracture the European Parliament.

Biofuels industry attacks on the scientific rigour and methodology of the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) are unfair and fall wide of the mark, writes Peter Wooders.

The bioethanol industry should stop defending wasteful public subsidies and join forces with NGOs to fight for the full carbon accounting which it says would vindicate its environmental record, argues Jos Dings.

In Europe, the outlook for water-related disasters over the coming decades is bleak due to stress on water systems, increased demand and pollution, says a report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

The European Union admired Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa’s now-abandoned radical conservation effort to keep Yasuní’s vast oil reserves untapped but did not want to foot the bill, preferring more traditional forms of aid.

Syngenta, one of the main producers of thiamethoxam, a pesticide used to coat seeds before germination, has launched a legal challenge against the European Commission’s decision to temporarily ban the chemical overs fears it harms bees.

Today (August 20) humanity’s use of renewable natural resources has already “overshot” the amount the planet can produce in one year, say environmental NGOs.

Backed by EU financing, a Spanish water company this week produced its first crop of algae that will be used to manufacture biofuel as an alternative to the more controversial crop-based transport fuels.

Africa’s oldest national park is in danger of environmental destruction because of mushrooming oil concessions that now cover some 85% of its territory, according to a new WWF report by the consultants Dalberg.

Indonesian palm oil has been blamed for deforestation, transcontinental smog, greenhouse gas emissions, forced evictions, child labour and modern day slavery. But if the EU imposes punitive duties on it before 2014, it will be for tax reasons.

Europe’s grassland butterfly population has dropped “dramatically” over the past 20 years, a stark warning that many of Europe’s species may be heading for extinction, says a new report by the European Environment Agency.

With the EIB set to approve a new energy lending policy and the EBRD presenting its new energy strategy, the timely signal sent by the World Bank on the need to quit coal can factor importantly in discussions taking place right now at the European public banks, writes Kuba Gogolewski.

The EU’s top environment and industry officials are meeting Chinese leaders for talks on promoting green growth today (19 July), as Beijing advises the young, elderly and ill to remain indoors due to “heavy pollution” for the 68th time this year.

Brussels has opened its wallet to offer €100 million in regional funding for what it calls a “ground-breaking” infrastructure programme, as an EU-South Africa summit opens in Pretoria today (18 July), on Nelson Mandela International Day.

Green housing campaigners are excited by a new sustainable buildings debate the EU has kick-started, which aims to move certification schemes beyond the energy efficiency paradigm.

EXCLUSIVE / A vote today (16 July) on whether to declare a marine protection area over an Antarctic body of water seven times the size of Germany is hanging in the balance due to Russian and Ukrainian fishing interests, the head of a European delegation to the talks has told EurActiv.

As the European Union seeks to address whether biofuels production increases greenhouse gas emissions and whether to tackle the issue by including indirect land use change (ILUC) factors in the environmental assessments, it has ignored the fact that ILUC can neither be observed nor measured and is therefore not a scientifically robust  solution, says Matthias Finkbeiner.

Plastics manufacturers are pushing for an EU-wide ban on the disposal of plastics in landfills, arguing that Europe needs tougher recycling requirements to stop an important raw material from being thrown away.

Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard has called for development banks with a combined annual lending pot of €130 billion to end support for fossil fuels in their energy lending policy reviews.