25 July 2010
EU funding for more than 200 environmental projects
The European Commission has approved funding for 210 new projects under the European fund for the environment (LIFE+ program). The projects represent a total investment of EUR515 million, of which the EU will provide EUR250 million. The projects are from across the EU and cover actions in the fields of nature conservation, environmental policy, and information and communication. They will also help raise awareness of biodiversity loss, water scarcity and climate change.
United States and Russia have signed this week a Protocol of Intent to deepen collaboration on energy efficiency, smart grid technology, and clean energy. The agreement will foster partnerships with U.S. and Russian utilities, regulators and others to share information and best practices. Potential activities will reduce energy loss in electricity systems and decrease levels of carbon emissions to help mitigate climate change.
Only governments, working together, can mobilize the human ingenuity, innovation and initiative to set free the full power of societies, science, and business to meet the climate challenge, said Christiana Figueres, UNFCCC Executive Secretary as briefing the press about the status of the UN climate change process. "Governments must set full sail ahead to capture the powerful winds of change that humanity is wanting to release," she added.
President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev made a working visit to Finland on 20-21 July. The talks with Finnish President Tarja Halonen focused on cooperation within international and regional forums in the Baltic region, northern Europe in general, and in the Arctic. The state of the Baltic Sea received special attention as the presidents visited a research center on Seili Island in the Sea. Medvedev said that a condition of the sea is worse than it used to be. "We should work on solving problems of the Baltic Sea together." 
Some of the European Union's largest companies have come out in support of moves by the UK, France and Germany to shift the EU to a 30 percent emissions reduction target. "By moving to a higher target, the EU will have a direct impact on the carbon price through to 2020 and deliver the economic signals that companies need if they are to continue investing billions of euros in low carbon products, services, technologies and infrastructure," the business leaders say, for instance.
Ministerial delegations from 24 countries representing 80 percent of global energy consumption and a similar percentage of the global market for clean energy technologies met this week in Washington D.C. promising 11 initiatives that would accelerate the global transition to a clean energy and low-carbon future. The initiatives will avoid, for instance, the need to build more than 500 mid-sized power plants in the next 20 years, support the growing global market for renewable energy, and bring solar lanterns to more than 10 million people without access to grid electricity by 2015.
President Barack Obama set a new policy on Monday intended to improve coordination of uses of U.S. coastal waters ranging from recreation to commercial fishing to offshore drilling, writes Reuters. As his administration contends with the BP Plc oil spill, Obama was to sign an executive order creating a single National Ocean Council to make sense of the huge number of rules from different agencies on the use of U.S. coastal waters and the Great Lakes.
In 2009, for the second year in a row, both the United States and Europe added more power capacity from renewable sources than fossil fuels. Renewables accounted for 60 percent of newly installed capacity in Europe and more than 50 percent in the US, according to twin reports launched by the UNEP and REN21. Globally, nearly 80 gigawatts (GW) of renewable power capacity was added in 2009 closing in on the 83 GW of fossil-fuel, thermal capacity installed. This year or next, the world as a whole will add more power capacity from renewable than non-renewable sources.