European Union News - Environmnet

This year's Green Week, the biggest annual conference devoted to European environment policy, will take place from 3 to 6 June at the Charlemagne Building in Brussels. Under the slogan "Only One Earth – Don’t waste it!" Green Week 2008 will focus on the need for Europe and the rest of the world to make its use of resources more sustainable. In addition to 38 conference sessions, there will be an extensive side-events programme, including a ceremony on 3 June at which Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas will announce the winners of the European Business Awards for the Environment 2008. Eleven companies from seven Member States have been nominated.

The European Commission today launched a public consultation on information provided to consumers about the fuel consumption and CO2 emissions of new cars. Stakeholders and the general public are invited to submit their views on how such information can be made clearer and more consistent. Studies have shown that the CO2 labelling directive in force is not working as well as it could and needs to be amended.

191 countries agreed on Friday 30th May to take far reaching action in order to address the current unprecedented loss of biodiversity across the globe. At the 9th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, which has been meeting for the past two weeks in Bonn Germany, consensus was reached on decisions, which will pave the way to ensuring that the increasing production of biofuels is sustainable and to finalising an international regime on access and benefit-sharing of genetic resources.

The idea of unilaterally imposing EU tariffs on non-climate-friendly imports, should there be no international accord on how to combat climate change, took centre stage at Thursday's (29th May 2008) Climate Committee hearing on competitiveness, trade, financing and sustainable employment. Compared with an international deal, such tariffs would be a distant second best, said World Trade Organization (WTO) Director-General Pascal Lamy.

Stop exploiting energy “as if there's no tomorrow”. This – as articulated by former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan – was the key message of Tuesday's conference on energy efficiency, attended by EP President Hans Gert Pöttering and 1990 Nobel laureate Mikhail Gorbachev. “More effective energy use is something we can easily achieve”, said Mr Pöttering, launching the Global Energy Conference on awareness-raising and energy efficiency.

The EP Environment Committee voted on Tuesday 27th May 2008, to reintroduce most of the Parliament's first-reading amendments (previously rejected by the Council) to a proposal to include airline traffic in the EU's Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). The two institutions have been battling  to have thier proposals put forward this week.

The European Commission, together with Europia, one of the partners of the Sustainable Energy Europe Campaign, have launched today a number of actions to promote energy efficient driving habits among European car users. "To reach our ambitious targets of CO2 reduction and energy savings we have to make a big effort in all sectors. In certain cases this will require high tech solutions, but in others we just need to apply some common sense. This campaign provides a set of simple tips to reduce CO2 emissions and save money, simply by driving more intelligently.

The European Commission proposes that all new cars from 2012 will have Electronic Stability Control (ESC) systems, to drastically improve vehicle safety. Furthermore lorries and other heavy vehicles should be fitted with Advanced Emergency Braking Systems (AEBS) and Lane Departure Warning (LDW) Systems as of 2013.

Overall emissions of CO2 from businesses in the EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) increased by 0.68% in 2007 when adjusted for changes in the number of installations covered, according to the information provided by Member State registries.

The EU-funded CLEANSOIL project has developed a method for the regeneration of contaminated soil in situ. The method was successfully tested on soils in Russia and Ukraine, which have been heavily polluted with petrochemical residues and pesticides, proving particularly effective in removing the latter.

Latest news from the  Enterprise & Industry DG is to Simplification of metrology directives. Measuring instruments are essential to ensure accuracy of measurement, notably for transactions by consumers and industry in every day life: examples include water meters, taximeters, electricity meters and weighing machines. Concerns have been expressed about eight  technical rules used for regulating measuring instruments used for tasks requiring legal metrological control, are not easily adaptable to technological progress and therefore risk hindering innovation.