On the 29th September the government submitted its official report to the European Commission on levels of air pollution in the UK for 2010. It makes for pretty grim reading. The report confirms that 40 of the 43 air quality zones in the UK breached the annual limits for nitrogen dioxide. No other EU country has a higher proportion of non-compliant zones. [...]

As part of the latest budget the UK government announced its intention to introduce a price floor for the emissions market. It is hoped that this move will encourage low carbon investment by disincentivising regulated entities from emitting at current levels. How this proposed unilateral measure will interact with the EU ETS remains to be [...]

Charged meaningless by some and pathetic by others, yesterday’s debate in the United Nations Security Council on the security implications of climate change disappointed the hopes of those in the policy community who, for years, sought action on climate change by the Security Council in absence of any effective multilateral agreement by the United Nations [...]

Article by Guest Contributor: David Holyoake Article provided by ClientEarth and reprinted with permission. Despite their pledge to be the ‘greenest government ever’, close analysis of the UK government’s proposed design of CO2 emissions performance standards for fossil fuel generation (‘EPS’ – limits on the amount of pollutants released into the air) risks being an [...]

The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) just released an online simulation tool that gives the public a chance to make big decisions over the UK’s energy future. Launched Thursday 3 March in London, My2050 is a user-friendly web application that is designed to allow the public to try out a variety of scenarios [...]

Opinion Piece by Guest Contributor: Melanie Strickland On 22 February 2011, six activists were found guilty of aggravated trespass at Trafford Magistrates Court, following their direct action at Manchester Airport in May 2010, to highlight the threat of climate change and the contribution of the airport to the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions. The activists had [...]

Over the past few weeks, some of Britain’s most high profile chef’s have tackled the issues of unsustainable fisheries across the EU and beyond. While Gordon Ramsay highlighted the issues and inhumanity of the illegal shark finning trade – all destined for the coveted shark fin soup – from locations including Taiwan and Costa Rica; [...]

At 2pm today 18 defendants were sentenced after being found guilty of conspiracy to commit aggravated trespass. Their crime was to attempt the shut-down of Ratcliffe- on- Soar, the UK’s third largest coal-fired power station. Yet, they argue that they are not criminals but defenders of the very future of the planet. Their defence raised [...]

UK’s Energy Minister, Chris Hulme, joins Ministers from over 190 countries today in Cancun, one of Mexico’s liveliest City’s to discuss ways to minimise climate change. In efforts to prevent global warming of up to 2 degrees Celsius, Chris Hulme and his ministerial counterparts from around the world will put forward new ideas, policies and [...]

The more green groups ask us to “stop flying,” the less the public believes in man-made climate change. Niel Bowerman argues there is a link. Today is the anniversary of “climategate”. It has damaged the credibility of the IPCC, and climate science in general, and yet scientists could not be clearer that the warming observed [...]