The price of crude oil, which has been languishing at five-month lows, jumped suddenly on Thursday (13 June) following unconfirmed reports of an attack on two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman.
A UK-South Korea trade deal announced Monday (10 June) guarantees future exemption from oil tariffs following a spate of dry months without crude imports coming from Britain's North Sea fields.
Technology experts are usually among the first to embrace new and emerging digital tools. But that idea was put to the test at a stakeholders' gathering about artificial-intelligence–enabled facial recognition this week at the Microsoft Center in Brussels.
The US president's gambit to make the Paris Agreement collapse failed. Now China and Russia are taking advantage of the power vacuum left by the US to shape the accord's rules - and show no signs of wavering on commitments.
After years of political wrangling over how to account for indirect land use change from biofuels in EU legislation, businesses now have the regulatory stability they’ve long been craving.
An overwhelming vote in favour of climate action at BP's annual meeting yesterday (21 May) shows how activist investors have started to move the oil and gas industry. But it also showed the limits to their appetite for change.
EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, a Liberal candidate to be the next Commission President, believes the key to improving Europe’s environment and fighting climate change will be implementing the laws already on the books.
Margrethe Vestager, one of the seven lead candidate for the Liberals in next month’s EU elections, views Juncker’s “project teams” as a success and would consider establishing multiple environment commissioners for different areas such as climate change, biodiversity, air pollution or chemicals.
Reaching the EU's target of increasing renewable heating and cooling by 1.3% each year will require a diverse array of solutions, says the European Commission's Hans van Steen.
The European Union has set a target of increasing renewables in heating and cooling by 1.3% every year starting in 2021. Given the pervasiveness of gas heat, it may be a struggle.
The European Commission has put changes in place that are making household appliances more energy efficient and recyclable. But the key will be in implementation of these rules, says the Commission's director for Industrial transformation.
European legislation has made appliances like washing machines and dishwashers even more water and energy efficient than washing clothes and dishes by hand. The next step is to connect these appliances to the web and allow them to act independently.
Over the past ten years, a raft of EU legislation has been passed making white goods like fridges, dishwashers and washing machines more efficient, recyclable and connected. In this Special Report, EURACTIV dives into the changes that have already taken...
Fully automated driving may be years away, but a new EU law being debated by legislators would mandate some semi-autonomous features in new cars, such as intelligent speed assistance. And the auto industry is worried about driver backlash.
In the coming years, EU citizens are set to see a change in the way they recycle waste at their homes and businesses – and in the way that recycling is measured.
When it comes to meeting the EU’s new recycling targets, metals will have a big head start. But EU member states could find it harder to reach future objectives under a new methodology being considered at the European Commission, says Maja Desgrées du Loû.
As the European Commission unveiled its long-term vision for greenhouse gas reduction on Wednesday (28 November), a yellow cloud hung over the grand pronouncements.
While policymakers craft a new long-term European Union framework for the energy transition, some of the most intense changes will fall to local utilities in Europe's cities. For some cities, their own preparations closely track what the European Commission is envisioning.
Each year Europe wastes millions of tonnes of valuable metals by landfilling or exporting them. How can policy measures increase the recovery of these materials?
The green economy usually brings to mind traditional renewable materials such as wood, biomass, water and earth. Less likely poster children are the big metals that have formed the backbone of the industrial revolution – steel, copper, iron, tin and aluminium.
As excitement builds about the opportunities of the new green economy, concerns are growing as well. The economic transition will require new grid infrastructure, new distribution models and, perhaps most importantly, more raw materials, says Kornelis Blok.
Vanadium, borate, bismuth, gallium – they may sound like planets from a science fiction movie, but in fact they are some of the most critical elements of the European Union’s economy.
![Plateforme pétrolière en mer Baltique, 2008. [Andrew/Flickr]](https://www.euractiv.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/05/oil_rig._north_sea_2008.jpeg)
