EU expects to meet renewable target

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions will help to avert dangerous climate change, but it will also bring other benefits, such as cuts in health-damaging air pollutants, including particulate matter, nitrogen oxides and sulphur dioxide.

Ozone pollution could cause hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of damage to human health and result in millions of premature deaths around the world by 2050.

A supergrid connecting Scandinavia and large parts of western Europe may pave the way for an even faster expansion of off-shore windpower.

The outcome of the Copenhagen summit proved extremely disappointing as regards international aviation and shipping emissions.

For the first time in 15 years India has revised its air quality standards. The new standards were notified by the environment ministry in November, and have lowered maximum limits for health damaging pollutants such as sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and PM₁₀, and introduced new limits for pollutants left out earlier, including ozone, PM_2.5, arsenic, nickel, benzene and polyaromatic hydrocarbons (as benzo(a)pyrene).

The second reading debate on the proposed revision of the industrial pollution directive (IPPC) is about to take place.

An EU consultancy report published in December recommends extending the 2004 directive on volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in paints and varnishes to other products such as hairsprays, solvent-based adhesives, window cleaning products and wood coatings.

The convention on long range air pollution has helped to clear the skies over Europe and North America over the last three decades - but a few countries are still notorious in failing to fulfil their committments.

Through an agreement between the Norwegian government and business organisations, a tax was transformed into a fund for investments - and emissions began to decrease rapidly.