Energy & Environment Archives

A majority of European citizens intend to fly less and already eat less meat to help fight climate change, according to a survey published by the European Investment Bank (EIB) on Monday (11 January).

Positive “tipping points” in the uptake of electric vehicles and the decarbonisation of electricity generation could spark a global transition to a climate neutral economy, scientists say, providing fresh hope in the fight against global warming.

Climate disaster could be curtailed within a couple of decades if net zero emissions are reached, new study shows. EURACTIV's media partner, The Guardian, reports.

Negotiations on the European Climate Law – including the bloc’s proposed 55% greenhouse gas reduction target for 2030 – are expected to wrap up before the end of June as Portugal makes a climate agreement the “big priority” of its six-month EU presidency, which started on 1 January.

Human activity will push concentrations of planet-warming carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to levels 50% higher than before the industrial revolution this year, breaching a symbolic climate change threshold, the UK’s Met Office forecast on Friday (8 January).

2020 was the warmest year recorded in Europe, breaking the previous 2019 record by 0.4°C,  according Copernicus, the EU's satellite earth observation system. Globally, the year tied with 2016 as the hottest on record.

Despite pressure from green groups, the UK Government has said it will not intervene in a county council's decision to approve a deep coal mine – the first facility of its kind to gain planning approval in 30 years, reports EURACTIV's media partner, edie.net.

The UK is facing a £1 billion bill to replicate the EU’s chemical database after the government opted to leave the bloc's REACH system on 31 December.

Additional red tape and customs declarations means electricity will no longer flow as smoothly as it used to when the UK was a full member of the European Union, leading to “increased costs of energy trading,” an EU spokesperson told EURACTIV.

China's delayed carbon trading system will start operating in February, the environment ministry has said, as the world's biggest polluter takes steps towards decarbonising its economy by 2060.

The price of permits on the European Union carbon market has soared to record levels in the first trading days of the year, hiking costs for polluters as the EU prepares measures to enforce deeper emissions cuts.

More than 650 households and commercial properties in a village near Gateshead in the north of England will trial the use of blended green hydrogen to be used for heating, reports EURACTIV's media partner, edie.net.

New EU rules came into force on 1 January, prohibiting the shipment of unsorted plastic waste to foreign countries. Although the move will increase pressure on Europe to recycle, activists say the ban is likely to increase landfilling and waste burning inside the Union.

Milan Škornjak is from the village of Strašnik, 10 kilometres away from the devastated city of Glina. For 20 years, he has tried to alert government officials that his revamped house had not met construction and safety standards.

Croatia's liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal on the northern Adriatic island of Krk began operations on Friday (1 January) amid the first delivery of gas, said the company which runs the unit.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić on Friday (1 January) opened a portion of a Russian gas project running through his country and hailed it as key for the security of its energy supply.

After a year scarred by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Portuguese presidency will seek to deliver on a Europe-wide vaccination plan and the National Recovery and Resilience Plans, writes António Costa.

An earthquake of magnitude 6.4 struck a town in Croatia on Tuesday (29 December), with the emergency services saying many people had been injured and video footage showing people being rescued from rubble near the epicentre.

Climate policy will again take centre stage in 2021, with the European Commission expected to table a mammoth package of green laws in June, before the COP26 UN climate summit in Glasgow caps off a year packed with milestones for European climate policy in December.

The Danish Maritime Authority has said that construction will begin in January on the stretch in Danish waters of the disputed Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which is to bring Russian gas to Germany.

The Polish government is on the hunt for securing yet another stream of subsidies to its coal industry, two weeks after EU leaders agreed on an enhanced climate target by 2030. But the European Commission can stop this, Elif Gündüzyeli and Joanna Flisowska write.

Norway's Supreme Court struck down a challenge from environmental groups trying to stop oil exploration in the Arctic, after a historic battle over the country's climate change commitments on Tuesday (22 December).

EU member states will need to step up their efforts on renewables and energy efficiency in order to meet the bloc's updated climate and energy targets for 2030.

While all eyes have been fixed on the EU Sustainable Finance Taxonomy’s climate change mitigation threshold, the parallel process for climate adaptation has received less attention – to potential detrimental effects, writes Jonas Helseth.