Under the Government’s Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) scheme, announced last May, from next year every organisation that consumes more than 6,000 megawatt hours of electricity in 2008 or about £500,000-worth will now buy carbon allowances. The mandatory cap and trade scheme will affect 5,000 large companies and local authorities in Britain and is aimed at [...]

©WWF, Japan As explained in a previous article, the Japanese Government has been examining its mid-term goal of greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions (2020) and is going to announce it in June. On 12 February, the committee on the mid-term goal, which has been established under the conference on global warming of the Government and has [...]

It rarely receives the same attention as the Amazon rain forest, one is being devastated by illegal logging and development but the other, Canada’s Boreal forests also represents a key battleground against Climate Change. Set in the in the far north, not far below the arctic line, the Boreal forests are a huge band across [...]

The climate conference in Bonn this week has given the EU another opportunity to reiterate its negotiating position leading to Copenhagen and attempt to maintain momentum in the negotiation process. The EU’s Czech presidency used both its opening address to the Bonn conference and a written statement to restate its views on how a global [...]

Earth Hour has grown far beyond the expectations of its organiser, WWF Australia, with about one billion people around the world following Sydney’s lead and switching off lights on Saturday night. The United Nations is calling it “the largest demonstration of public concern about climate change ever attempted”. Earth Hour originated in Sydney in 2007, [...]

Africa is set to be one of the most afflicted continents from the impacts of climate change. Compounding Africa’s fragile economic basis to deal with the consequences is the impact the global economic recession is having. The continent is set to lose $40 billion in 2009 as a result of stagnated growth, which continues to [...]

Scottish ministers are aiming for 50% of electricity demand to be met by renewable energy by the year 2020, with an interim target of 31% by 2011, and recent reports suggests that they are running ahead of schedule. Minister Alex Salmond said: “…we are well ahead of schedule in meeting our renewables energy targets. The [...]

As the G20 and UNFCCC meetings draw closer, France’s Green Plan (le Grenelle Environment Round Table) and a couple recent additions are worth a quick review. So a few things: • The Oceans Initiative (Le Grenelle de la Mer) was originally announced in February 2009, but major action has just started in the past weeks. [...]

Renewable energy has been in the Indian news a lot lately. Firstly, India is gearing up for a partnership in renewable energy with the United States: an American trade mission exploring possible tie-ups in solar energy has come to India at a time when India is fleshing out its national solar mission (which was announced [...]

In a landmark move, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is about to declare an “endangerment finding” on GHGs, meaning they officially acknowledge them to be a threat to human health, and are therefore required to regulate them under the Clean Air Act (CAA). This is the latest development in a process that started in 1999 [...]