US House speaker Nancy Pelosi and EU President Jose Manuel Barroso briefly met with the European press today. Pelosi is visiting Europe together with a bipartisan US Congress delegation to talk about transatlantic policies on climate change and trade. The delegation visited Greenland first and went from there to Berlin to speak to German Chancellor [...]

My colleague George Monbiot delivers another blow to Labour’s multiple energy efforts in the Guardian’s Comment is Free.
Monbiot has compared the transport chapter of the new Energy White Paper (which aims at reducing the UK’s consumption of fossil fuel) with the Planning White Paper issued in the same week (which opens the door for more [...]

Lawrence Summers presents in the Financial Times “four practical steps” to go beyond the “ineffective and perhaps even counterproductive” Kyoto approach. According to the Harvard professor and former Clinton advisor, the US should start putting real energy efficiency policies in place and developed countries should substantially increase research funds for energy technologies and make “intellectual [...]

With all the political and media hysteria about climate change, might we be overlooking an even bigger challenge? Some of us have already woken up to the danger of declining energy reserves (keywords: peak oil, peak gas and even peak oil - see an earlier post), but neither the media, nor the political world has [...]

BP yesterday abandoned its plans to build a carbon capture plant in Scotland (Peterhead) after the UK government published its Energy White Paper and delayed a decision on subsidies for the planned poject. The plant, which was developed with the help of other companies such as Shell, was supposed to generate electricity from hydrogen, reducing [...]

Outgoing Prime Minister Tony Blair will probably go down in history as the “poodle” of Bush on Iraq but also as the man who started the nuclear renaissance in Europe. His government presented today (23 May) a new Energy White Paper underlining the need for new nuclear power plants, increased use of renewables and more [...]

For all the rhetoric of reconciling ecology and economy, the economic development in China shows that things are often much more complex and difficult. As Reuters reported on 22  May 2007, pollution and loss of biodiversity are worsening as a result of the country’s spectacular economic growth.
Further reading on Chinese environmental policy:

Seed: The China Experiment [...]

Carbon dioxide emissions will rise 59% by 2030 as economic growth will drive demand for energy. This is the bad news published today by the US Energy Information Administration in its International Energy Outlook 2007. Looking at these figures, who still believes the EU will be able to convince other regions that a global reduction [...]

Now, here is a tip for the new French government of President Sarkozy and his “sustainable development” superminister Alain Juppé: scrap the 35-hour-week and make it a 32-hour-week to save the planet!
To be honest, this is not my recommendation, as I am a 60-hour-week workaholic myself, but it is part of the political programme of [...]

European ministers for urban planning will be adopting the Leipzig Charter on European Sustainable Cities when they meet in the German city from 24 to 25 May. EurActiv has special coverage on cities and sustainability during the whole week.
On Wednesday 23th, the UK government will present a new Energy White Paper. One of the contentious [...]