The UK government has adopted a 50 per cent greenhouse gas reduction target relative to 1990 levels for its carbon budget for the period 2023–27. But it added this budget should be reviewed in 2014, a provision seen by some as a weakening.
Minister Chris Huhne took advice from the UK's Committee on Climate Change on targets for the mid-2020s but rejected its recommendation that emissions from Britain's non-traded sectors be tightened between 2013 and 2022. The ministry has also rejected advice that the carbon budget be met without use of international offsets. The budget will be met by domestic reductions "as far as practicable and affordable". But "we also intend to keep our carbon trading options open to maintain maximum flexibility, and minimise costs", it added.
Source: ENDS Europe Daily, 18 May 2011
Europe should take an integrated approach to nitrogen management. This is the main message of the European Nitrogen Assessment, a new report launched during the "Nitrogen and Global Change" conference, in Edinburgh (UK) from 11–14 April, 2011.
The number of premature deaths in Europe caused by air pollutant emissions from international shipping is estimated to amount to approximately 49,500 in the year 2000, and rise to 53,200 in 2020.
There are sufficient resources to provide the world with renewable energy. The main constraint on development is public policy, that is the main message in a new IPCC report.
A handful of measures targeting black carbon and tropospheric ozone can reduce future global warming by 0.5°C, according to a UNEP and WMO report.
Germany's lignite power plants still dominate the CO2 list. Serbia is registering emissions for the first time and enters both the NOx list and the SO2 list.
Mercury emissions from coal-fired plants can be cut by well over 90 per cent, but this fact has so far been neglected in ongoing talks for a revised Heavy Metals Protocol.
As no revision of the European Air Quality legislation is planned until at least 2013, the EU has said it will focus on source-oriented legislation in the meantime. Often neglected in comparison to regulations concerning road vehicles, the so-called "non-road" sector, which includes locomotive ..
"Curbing mobility is not an option," says the European Commission in a new roadmap for the transport sector, expressing a view that immediately sparked criticism.
Prompt action is required to further reduce particulate matter, ground-level ozone, and nitrogen dioxide – an EU clean air strategy should be adopted in 2013.
Significant environmental improvements can be achieved while additional costs still stay well below 0.1 per cent of GDP. Moreover, health benefits alone outweigh the costs by ten times or more.