Top 3
1) Germany scraps agreement on EU car emissions
EU environment ministers agreed yesterday (15 October) to German demands to scrap an agreement to cap EU car emissions that Berlin argued would cost jobs and damage its luxory car makers. The move comes after reports of a deal between the British and German governments to scrap moves on vehicle emissions and bankers bonuses.
2) Greenpeace launches legal block to fracking
Greenpeace is signing up home and land-owners who object to companies drilling horizontally under their land. Firms need to ask permission before drilling under someone's property - or seek a statutory court order.
3) Bulgaria, Poland have dirtiest air in Europe
“Large parts of the population do not live in a healthy environment,” Hans Bruyninckx, the executive director of the European Environment Agency said in a statement. “To get on to a sustainable path, Europe will have to be ambitious and go beyond current legislation.” Not coincidentally both countries are major coal users.
UK
Clegg: Scrapping green taxes will only increase bills
He told The Daily Telegraph: “Like everyone else I want us to strain every sinew to keep those bills down – but I don’t think anyone should think that by scrapping all the levies that exist suddenly with one bound we are free. We won’t.
International
Shell CEO sceptical on shale
Shell's CEO Peter Voser has said it will take longer than expected to get a return on the firm's US shale investment and that shale outside the US will take 'decades' to develop. "This is a big hype at the moment," Voser said, adding that his US shale investments were "clearly not as successful as thought."
EU fails to back smart grids.
Only two of the long-awaited 248 projects of common interest (PCI) to link Europe’s energy network will be smart grids, the European Commission has said, in an oft-predicted setback for plans to rationally manage energy demand and integrate renewable sources.
Clean energy investment 'falling off a cliff'
More on yesterday's story about a fall in clean energy investment - this time helpfully explained and illustrated by US business news magazine, Quartz.
More Greenpeace activists denied bail
Captain Willcox, 60, a veteran campaigner who was at the helm of the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior when it was bombed and sunk by the French secret service in 1985, denied the charges against him in court."I have been doing this for 40 years and never faced a charge like this," the state-run Russian news agency RIA quoted him as saying. "If I could start everything over, I would stay in New York."
Poland says it will lead calls for carbon cuts
Coal-dependent Poland said it would lead the call for all nations to deepen greenhouse emissions cuts when it hosts U.N. climate talks in Warsaw next month, in a surprise reversal of its previous stance.
Coal slump hits Australian port
“There will be more capacity than mines available to utilize it,” Daniel Morgan, a Sydney-based analyst at UBS AG said in a phone interview. “It may result in the banking syndicate having to renegotiate the terms or the price, or taking a writedown on their position.”
Four central European countries urge nuclear
Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary want the European Union to support nuclear energy projects and not to over-regulate the area, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Monday after a summit of the "Visegrad Four" countries.
