Innovation has been one of the EU’s main priorities in the last ten years. There have been several high-level reports under the Barroso commission (the most well-known being the famous Esko Aho report). So why is it that the real innovators are in the US, China and the Middle East? Where are the European leaders [...]

Last week saw two very interesting stories:

The Australian government of Kevin Rudd presented its Green Paper on a possible greenhouse gas emissions trading scheme. Australia wants to have its “Carbon Pollution Reduction scheme” (a better name than the EU’s ETS)  started by 2010. It will cover around 1000 companies in the energy sector, transport and [...]

The so-called “leaders” of the eight biggest economies have done it again: glorious declarations with little substance in a diplomatic language which allows all of them to spin their “global” commitment and responsibility.
Not only were there no concrete mid-term targets set but the 50% reduction promise has no binding character, lacks any base reference year [...]

As G-8 leaders start their 3-day talking circus on the Japanese island of Hokkaido, four new reports confirm that our race towards economic and ecological collapse continues at an increasing speed:

The Australian government published its long-awaited Garnaut report (over 500 pages), sort of a Stern report for the country down under. Economist Garnaut’s (not very [...]

The future of tourism in an age of climate change was the subject of an exciting conference organised by the Greens in the European Parliament on 3 July. How can the global tourism industry be greened and which countries will be the winners and losers from global warming in terms of tourism?
The growth of mass [...]

Looking back at the first half of the year, I can only conclude that my doom-and gloom predictions for 2008 were unfortunately spot on. With stock markets continuing their dive down and oil prices exploding upward, this year could indeed turn out to become the “annus horribilis” I feared. To be honest, things look even [...]