30 November, 2007
I was quite surprised this week when I attended a conference organised by the Greens in the European Parliament and saw them do the lobbying for a grand solar industrial project which I think still has a lot of uncertainties and even environmental dangers. The DESERTEC project [see Wikipedia FR] aims at building huge concentrating… » read more
Posted by Willy De Backer
In Hamburg, 25 metropolitan regions committed themselves to cut their greenhouse gas emissions by 80% before 2050. Delegates of cities such as Amsterdam, Lyon, Stockholm, Hamburg, Frankfurt or München signed the joined declaration during a special climate change conference of the Network of European Metropolitan Regions and Areas (METREX). So, another piece of evidence that… » read more
Posted by Willy De Backer
27 November, 2007
How can Europe lead on the necessary transition to a carbon-constrained economic future when the policy measures needed might undermine the competitiveness of European industries? This was the subject of a major conference “Towards a global low carbon economy” organised as the closing event of the EU Commission’s high-level group on competitiveness, energy and the… » read more
Posted by Willy De Backer
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Biofuels, Business and climate change, Climate change, Eco-competitiveness, energy saving, energy security, Global Warming, renewable energy sources, sustainable energy |
26 November, 2007
One week before the climate summit in Bali, the Confederation of British Industries (CBI) will be presenting a report on the UK government’s efforts to reach its greenhouse gas reduction targets (6O% by 2050). The report recognises the business opportunities related to the fight against climate change and proposes new nuclear power plants as one… » read more
Posted by Willy De Backer
22 November, 2007
Remember the hippie movement of 1967? Those naive, young but well-meaning guys and boys who believed in “making love, not war” at a time when the US was fighting one of its dirtiest wars in Asia? Well, I guess a lot of these guys and boys now are running big businesses (or advising them) and still… » read more
Posted by Willy De Backer
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Climate change, energy security, Population & Sustainability, sustainability |
21 November, 2007
There are three ways of looking at the new greenhouse emission figures presented by the UN’s climate change secretariat yesterday. The pessimist will observe that the “total greenhouse gas emissions of 40 industrialized countries rose to a near all-time high in 2005” and that the trend since 2000 is going in the wrong direction, notwithstanding all… » read more
Posted by Willy De Backer
20 November, 2007
UK political commentators are rather sceptical about yesterday’s “green conversion” of Prime Minister Gordon Brown. The Labour governments of Mr Blair and now Mr Brown have been talking loads about the need to tackle climate change but their delivery record has not been as impressive as their rhetoric. Can Gordon Brown become Gordon Green? Read… » read more
Posted by Willy De Backer
18 November, 2007
Can one write something new about the latest synthesis report from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change? Not really. Not only is it just repeating what was in the three earlier reports this year (although maybe with a bit more political courage), but what it confirms is already known for years (although some still need… » read more
Posted by Willy De Backer
16 November, 2007
A US federal court has rejected the car fuel (CAFE) standards set in 2006 by the Bush administration for failing to assess the environmental costs of greenhouse gas emissions resulting from the use of the new standards. The Court criticised in particular the SUV loophole and the failure to include heavier vehicles. No less than eleven… » read more
Posted by Willy De Backer
The UK government introduced the world’s first climate change bill into the House of Lords on 14 November. The bill aims at reducing the country’s geenhouse gas emissions by 26 to 32% by 2020 and by at least 60% by 2050. The bill proposes a system of five-year carbon budgets and sets up a Committee… » read more
Posted by Willy De Backer
