Updated figures for the EU emissions trading scheme (ETS) show that emissions from sites covered by the scheme were 3.2% higher last year than in 2009, together amounting to 1.9 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalents. Emissions from traded sectors increased by almost 40% in Estonia and by about 30% in Sweden and Latvia. The next largest increase was in Finland (20%). Emissions fell in Denmark, Malta, Spain, Portugal and Romania.
Credits from international projects accounted for about 7% of the allowances and credits surrendered this year, and their use was 68% higher than last year. Seventeen plants appear to have covered more than 90% of their 2010 emissions with international credits. These include Romanian energy firm SC RAFO SA, a site in France owned by paper company Stora Enso and a Spanish gas compression facility.
Source: ENDS Europe Daily, 17 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.
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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.