Wednesday, March 7th, 2012
It is Norway´s view that the increase in global mean temperature has to be limited to a maximum of 2 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial level in order to achieve the ultimate objective of the UN Convention on Climate Change of preventing dangerous climate change. Today emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries amount
Tuesday, March 6th, 2012
When poor nations become richer, their appetite for natural resources grows. Sustainability experts say policymakers meeting in Rio de Janiero this year need to think about just how much growth Earth can support. Almost a billion people around the world are starving, while another billion suffer health problems linked to overeating. Farming subsidies in rich countries
Monday, March 5th, 2012
Europe has been making the news for the wrong reasons recently. Today I want to rewrite the headlines. While clearly we have difficulties, we are taking the right decisions to ensure an economic road to recovery. Europe is most definitely open for business. As the European Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science, I am responsible for
Friday, March 2nd, 2012
Poland has not yet complied with EU legislation on water protection, including monitoring of water quality. On the recommendation of Environment Commissioner Janez Potočnik, the Commission is sending an additional reasoned opinion to ask Poland to correctly implement the EU’s Water Framework Directive (WFD). This is the third time Poland has been reminded of the need to
Thursday, March 1st, 2012
A new study concludes that fossil fuel emissions are likely contributors to a substantial amount of organic carbon found on glaciers in Alaska. Fossil fuel emissions, which contain organic carbon, can speed up the rate of glacier melt when deposited on glacier surfaces. In addition, the organic molecules associated with these deposits can be transported
Thursday, March 1st, 2012
Another innovative project involving collaborative mapping and cyberscience will see the light this year thanks to support from the Open Society Foundations. The Foundations, established by George Soros, have the mission “to increase public access to knowledge, facilitate civil society communication, and protect civil liberties and the freedom to communicate in the digital environment.” The
Monday, February 27th, 2012
Phasing down the production and use of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) under the Montreal Protocol ozone treaty is one of the most effective climate protection strategies available to the world today: it could substantially eliminate emissions of one of the fastest growing greenhouse gases globally. Low-climate-impact substitutes for HFCs are already available and could be quickly adopted.
Sunday, February 26th, 2012
With a growing sense in the science community that climate change is real—the National Academies of Sciences in the United States, and the Royal Society in the United Kingdom were just two among many scientific organizations issuing statements about human-caused warming—the devastating 2005 hurricane season hardly seemed coincidental. Warming climate was worsening tropical cyclones, right?
Thursday, February 23rd, 2012
A Netherlands-based environmental organization, Wetlands International, is charging in a new report that Malaysia is destroying its tropical rainforest at a rate three times faster than the rest of Asia combined, particularly in the East Malaysian state of Sarawak, with the expectation that “expansion of oil palm plantations may lead to the complete loss of
Wednesday, February 22nd, 2012
Twelve percent of marine species surveyed in the Gulf of California, the coasts of Panama and Costa Rica and the five offshore oceanic islands and archipelagos in the tropical eastern Pacific are threatened with extinction, according to a study by IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) and its partners. Main threats to the region’s
