Archive for the ‘European Union’ Category

David Cameron talks tough on European Union borders. – Video


David Cameron talks tough on European Union borders.
Conservative Party back-bencher Peter Bone tries to get to grips with the EU migration problem that keeps coming up on the doorstep of a constituency. Poor David Cameron bites his tongue and...

By: John Moore

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David Cameron talks tough on European Union borders. - Video

European Union Sets Plan to Cut Greenhouse Gas Emissions

TIME World climate change European Union Sets Plan to Cut Greenhouse Gas Emissions European heads of state and government (from back left) Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Loefven, Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka, Slovenian Prime Minister Miro Cerar, Portuguese Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho and German Chancellor Angela Merkel (from front left) European Council President Herman Van Rompuy, Bulgarian President Rosen Plevneliev, French President Francois Hollande, Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso talk before a family photo during a European Union summit at the EU headquarters in Brussels on Oct 23, 2014. JOHN THYSAFP/Getty Images Europe sets climate change goals to be met by 2030

Leaders in Europe have agreed that 28 nations will cut greenhouse gas emissions to at least 40% below 1990 levels by 2030. The deal comes a year ahead of international climate negotiations next year and is designed to set an example for the rest of the world.

The European Union finalized the deal after hours of debate among leaders. They have also vowed that renewable energy will meet at least 27 percent of European countries needs and that energy efficiency will increase by a minimum of 27% in the next 16 years.

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European Union Sets Plan to Cut Greenhouse Gas Emissions

European Union to allow car emissions in carbon trading mart

BRUSSELS: The European Union is set to make it easier to bring road transport emissions into the carbon trading market, a move that critics say could empower carmakers to push back against more effective curbs on greenhouse gases.

EU leaders will attempt to agree on energy policy for 2030 when they meet in Brussels on Thursday and Friday, including an EU-wide cut in greenhouse gas emissions of 40 per cent compared with 1990 levels.

The EU's Emissions Trading System (ETS), key to efforts to reduce emissions, has so far excluded road transport. It has focused on curbing pollution from heavy industry and the power sector by forcing more than 12,000 power plants, factories and airlines to surrender an allowance for every tonne of CO2 emitted under a gradually decreasing emission cap.

But a draft of the EU's 2030 climate and energy package, seen by Reuters, says individual member states can include road transport in the EU ETS if they choose.

It also calls on the executive European Commission to "further develop instruments and measures for a comprehensive and technology neutral approach for the promotion of emissions reduction and energy efficiency in transport".

The phrase "technology neutral" is often used by business to champion using the EU ETS to tackle emissions, rather than sector-specific targets. Transport is Europe's secondlargest source of greenhouse gas emissions after the power sector, and is also the fastestgrowing one.

Bringing cars into the ETS could reduce the costs the car industry faces in meeting existing regulation as well as tackling the oversupply on the carbon market which has pushed prices of carbon allowances down to around 6 ($7.64) per tonne from more than 30 six years ago. But the impact on emissions would be negligible, analysts say.

A study published this week by consultancy Cambridge Econometrics estimated that bringing road transport into the ETS would curb emissions by 1 per cent by 2030 at current ETS prices. It also found that to achieve a vehicle emissions goal of 60grams of carbon dioxide per kilometre (g/km) by 2030 the logical extension of existing car emissions targets carbon prices would need to rise to over 200 per tonne, imposing huge costs on heavy industry.

Climate campaigners say heavy lobbying from business has already ensured proposed emissions cut of 40 per cent will not include a sub-target for transport, whereas the current set of 2020 targets includes a 6 per cent cut in road fuel emissions compared with 1990.

Existing EU law also includes emissions standards to limit carbon dioxide pollution from cars, which extend to 2021 and have attracted stiff resistance, especially from the German luxury car sector, led by brands such as BMW and Daimler.

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European Union to allow car emissions in carbon trading mart

European Union swoops in to help save hen harrier

THE European Union is flying in to help rescue a rare bird in the Trough of Bowland.

A new project has been launched to achieve a secure and sustainable future for the hen harrier, one of the countrys most threatened birds of prey.

It will focus on seven areas, including the United Utilities Bowland Estate in East Lancashire, designated as nesting sites under the European Union Birds Dir-ective.

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The Hen Harrier LIFE+ Project will last for five years and will include direct conservation action, comm-unity engagement, and awareness-raising meas-ures.

Between 2004 and 2010 there was an 18 per cent decline in the UK hen harrier population, accor-ding to the National Hen Harrier Survey.

Last year, hen harriers suffered their worst breeding season in England in decades failing to rear a single chick anywhere in England.

While they fared slightly better with four nests in England this year, natural deaths and the sudden, unexplained disappearances of three satellite-tagged birds including two from Bowland, mean that only nine of the 16 chicks fledged are thought to still be alive.

Project manager Blnaid Denman said: Hen harriers are in dire straits. Numbers are declining dramatically and urgent action is needed, which is why this European-funded project is both welcome and timely.

The cross-border project provides a huge boost to our efforts to protect hen harriers.

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European Union swoops in to help save hen harrier

Critics Slam EU's New Deal on 40 Percent Carbon Cut

European Union leaders struck a deal on a new target to cut carbon emissions by 2030 to at least 40 percent below 1990 levels, calling it a new global standard, but critics warned that compromises had undermined the fight against climate change. Poland had fought to spare its coal industry and other states tweaked the guideline text on global warming to protect varied economic interests, including nuclear plants, cross-border power lines and farmers whose livestock belch out polluting methane. The 28-nation bloc has already nearly met an existing goal of a 20-percent cut by 2020, in part because communist-era industry in the east collapsed.

EU leaders called the 40-percent target an ambitious signal to the United States and China to follow suit at a U.N. climate summit in France in December 2015. But environmentalists have complained that the EU's own experts say it must make an at least 80-percent cut by 2050 to limit the rise in global average temperatures to two degrees Celsius. And they were further disappointed by a softening in the final agreement of goals for increasing the use of solar, wind and other renewable energy sources and for improving efficiency through insulation, cleaner engines and the like.

First published October 23 2014, 5:24 PM

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Critics Slam EU's New Deal on 40 Percent Carbon Cut