European Union environment ministers officially gave up on a decade-old target to stop the depletion of the continent's animal and plant species on Monday. "We have missed our 2010 biodiversity target, obviously," European environment commissioner Janez Potocnik told reporters in Brussels following his first attendance at an EU environment council. "We must not repeat that mistake." "This is year we want to establish [new] baseline targets and develop a convincing strategy on how to ensure we won't fail again," he added.
"We have missed our 2010 biodiversity target, obviously," European environment commissioner Janez Potocnik told reporters in Brussels following his first attendance at an EU environment council. "We must not repeat that mistake."
"This is year we want to establish [new] baseline targets and develop a convincing strategy on how to ensure we won't fail again," he added.
Janez Potočnik, the European commissioner for the environment, said today that he was prepared to offer concessions to a group of six countries that are blocking a deal on the EU's first-ever law on soil protection. Speaking at a meeting of EU environment ministers in Brussels, Potočnik said he would make "further efforts to bring member states on board". Austria, Germany France, Malta, the Netherlands and the UK today re-stated their opposition to a draft directive on soil. The proposal, which would oblige countries to draw up plans to clean up contaminated soil and offset soil lost to urban expansion, has failed to make progress in the Council of Ministers for more than three years.
Speaking at a meeting of EU environment ministers in Brussels, Potočnik said he would make "further efforts to bring member states on board".
Austria, Germany France, Malta, the Netherlands and the UK today re-stated their opposition to a draft directive on soil. The proposal, which would oblige countries to draw up plans to clean up contaminated soil and offset soil lost to urban expansion, has failed to make progress in the Council of Ministers for more than three years.
Countries bordering the Caspian sea need to sign supply contracts this year for Europe's long-planned Nabucco gas pipeline if the project is to go ahead, with a `big push' expected from the European Commission and member states involved, one of the stakeholders told this website. Eight years into the preparation phase of the EU's most ambitious pipeline project, stakeholders are now increasingly nervous about securing the necessary gas supplies from Caspian littoral countries to make the investment worth while. "We are basically sitting at the borders of Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan and waiting. We're in discussions, but we need now to pull this together to get the supply commitments," Jeremy Ellis, head of business development at German energy company RWE, one of the Nabucco stakeholders told EUobserver in a phone interview.
Eight years into the preparation phase of the EU's most ambitious pipeline project, stakeholders are now increasingly nervous about securing the necessary gas supplies from Caspian littoral countries to make the investment worth while.
"We are basically sitting at the borders of Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan and waiting. We're in discussions, but we need now to pull this together to get the supply commitments," Jeremy Ellis, head of business development at German energy company RWE, one of the Nabucco stakeholders told EUobserver in a phone interview.
The energy contained in a photon is defined by its frequency, and that remains pretty much the same (barring a bit of gravitational redshifting) from the moment it spins out of the thermonuclear maelstrom of the Sun until the moment eight minutes later when it arrives on earth and gets absorbed by a green leaf, let's say, or the absorbent surface in a solar water heater. Once again, though, that's a matter of the quantity of energy, not the concentration. The concentration, in this case, is determined by the rate at which photons impact the leaf or the solar panel; that depends on how widely spread the photons are, and that depends, in turn, on how far the leaf and the panel are from the Sun.Think of it this way. The individual photons that heat the planet Mercury each contain, on average, the same quantity of energy as the individual photons that heat the planet Neptune. Is Neptune as warm as Mercury? Not hardly, and the reason is that by the time they get out to the orbit of Neptune, the Sun's rays are spread out over a much vaster area, so each square foot of Neptune gets a lot fewer photons than a corresponding square foot of Mercury. The photons are less concentrated in space, and that, not the quantity of energy they each contain, determines how much of the hard work of heating a planet they are able to do. There are stars in the night sky that produce photons far more energetic, on average, than those released by the Sun, but you're not going to get a star tan from their light!
Oh, no, sorry.
The £250bn cost of developing Canada's controversial tar sands between now and 2025 could be used to decarbonise the western economy by funding ambitious solar power schemes in the Sahara or a European wide shift to electric vehicles, according to a new report released today. The same amount of investment would also help the world to hit half of the Millenium Development Goals in the 50 least-developed countries, says the research from The Co-operative and conservation group, WWF, which is released to coincide with a new film, Dirty Oil, being premiered in 25 cinemas around the UK today.
The same amount of investment would also help the world to hit half of the Millenium Development Goals in the 50 least-developed countries, says the research from The Co-operative and conservation group, WWF, which is released to coincide with a new film, Dirty Oil, being premiered in 25 cinemas around the UK today.
