|
|
April 17, 2008
Why is it so hard to accept that our planet’s economy has limits? The puerile excitement of so-called energy experts about Brazil’s new “gigantic” oil find is yet another proof that the world and its media remain in denial about our worsening sustainability crisis. “Surprise discovery off coast of Brazil may confound the oil and… » read more
|
energy security, Peak oil, resource depletion, Sustainability |
Social Europe can deal with the challenges posed by globalisation according to a new report written for a European Commission conference on 16 April. But the report fails to mention most of the social impacts of climate change, the looming energy crunch (including high energy and food prices and their social consequences) or growing water… » read more
|
Energy and Climate Change, global governance, Globalisation, Sustainability, Sustainable Development |
April 14, 2008
We are now so used to talk about climate change in terms of policy, of technicalities, such as GHG-concentration in PPMs and of technologies/fuels that we tend to loose the sight of the object itself – the physical impact in the everyday life. The latest IPCC-report is however of great help for the understanding. What… » read more
The quote is from no-one less than Mahatma Gandhi and he was in his turn quoted by the IPCC-chair, Rajendra Pachauri, when he received the Nobel Peace-prize last year. In the past the statement might have been overlooked as being a somewhat idealistic point of view, but in the light of the climate change the… » read more
Eberhard Rhein’s proposals for an new international climate regime (see his guest blog post from yesterday) has the merit of being more concrete than what I have seen from the EU up to now in terms of efforts to put a global agreement on the rails. Nevertheless, I have two fundamental problems with it (like… » read more
|
Energy and Climate Change, Global Warming, Sustainability, Sustainable Development |
March 20, 2008
Is the current chaos in the financial sector the beginning of a global systemic collapse? Two of my favourite American authors certainly seem to think so. Thomas Homer-Dixon, the author of the excellent “Upside of Down“, goes as far as to claim “Global capitalism teeters on the brink” in an opinion piece for the online… » read more
March 14, 2008
The most recent environmental Eurobarometer tells an interesting story when you are able to dig a bit deeper. Of course, it is useful for DG Environment to be able to “learn” from the survey that “Europeans put the environment centre stage” and that 64% of EU citizens feel that protecting the environment “must be given… » read more
March 13, 2008
Politicians should stop pretending that decarbonising our economies can be done on the cheap. This is the conclusion of a damning analysis of EU climate/energy policies published by Oxford energy professor Dieter Helm in the Wall Street Journal today. Helm starts his evaluation with a critical look at the EU’s achievements in terms of emission… » read more
|
Energy and Climate Change, European Commission, European Union, Global Warming, Stern report, Sustainability |
March 12, 2008
I sometimes complain that our political elites have lost all long-term vision focused as they are on feeding the quick-news-hungry media with sexy soundbites which have little value for the societal challenges these policy makers are supposed to tackle. It is therefore very encouraging that, occasionally , there is a political figure who manages to… » read more
|
ecological footprint, Energy and Climate Change, Global Warming, Peak oil, resource depletion, Sustainability |
March 6, 2008
American green guru Lester Brown was in Brussels this week to promote his new book Plan B 3.0. As I had just finished reading the book, I had the opportunity to ask him a few questions during a presentation in the European Parliament last Tuesday. I felt he did not really answer my fundamental critique… » read more
|
Energy and Climate Change, Peak oil, Sustainability, Sustainable Development |
March 4, 2008
I am not Al Gore and therefore cannot provide you with the “inconvenient truth” but there are a few inconvenient questions that have started to vex me recently as I am thinking and reading more about our global sustainability problematique. Let’s start with a few of my beliefs in order to put my inconvenient questions… » read more
February 25, 2008
In a recent interview with EurActiv, Jeremy Rifkin expressed his belief that “Europe can lead the third industrial revolution”. In the closing debate of this year’s European Business Summit, the American author repeated his admiration for the EU’s policies but added cautiously that “the EU might well tell the right narrative, but the US could… » read more
|
Energy and Climate Change, energy security, European Union, Sustainability |
February 21, 2008
What’s the difference? In these times of climate change concern, individuals and organizations alike are eager for measurable criteria to compare the impact of products and services on global warming. The notions of ‘Life Cycle Assessment’, ‘Carbon Footprint’, and ‘Ecological Footprint’ often appear in the media, but their exact meaning and the differences between them… » read more
February 19, 2008
Business leaders attending this week’s European Business Summit 2008 would do well to listen to their colleague Richard Branson of Virgin Group in order to understand the urgency of finding solutions for our climate/energy crisis. During a press conference last week, Branson called for the creation of a global “war room” to coordinate actions to… » read more
|
Energy and Climate Change, Global Warming, Sustainability, Sustainable Development |
January 25, 2008
Commission President Barroso today (25 Jan) expressed his support for a Davos declaration on the Millennium Development Goals and promised to “discuss with Member States the importance of scaling up aid budgets”. By putting this issue in the context of “financial aid”, developed countries can feel good about themselves. They are helping (or at least… » read more
|
ecological footprint, Sustainability, Sustainable Development |
January 23, 2008
One of the lessons I took back home after my week’s stay in California is that there is a lot happening in the USA on “sustainability entrepreneurship”. During an inspiring dinner meeting with some friends of the Global Footprint Network, we discussed about several exciting start-ups which have introduced “ecological constraints thinking” into their business… » read more
December 11, 2007
There are so many myths and false assumptions in the climate/energy debate that I always like to highlight authors and articles who/which cut through all the ideology by looking at the raw scientific figures. One author who consistently uses this “reality check” is George Monbiot. In an article published last week, Monbiot has made the… » read more
|
Energy and Climate Change, resource depletion, Sustainability |
December 5, 2007
Here, that is, in our own “developed” world and not only in those countries which are traditionally being identified as “developing” countries (the now politically incorrect “third world” in the past). As the economic growth successes and the consumption abundance of our developed countries have been bought on the back of rapid over-exploitation of the… » read more
|
Energy and Climate Change, energy security, resource depletion, Sustainability, Sustainable Development |
There are a lot of moral problems linked to the issue of climate change. One of them shows itself clearly in a recent report published by international development agency Christian Aid. Its 19-pages ”Truly Inconvenient” report looks at ways to “tackle poverty and climate change at once” and concludes that developed countries like the US and the EU… » read more
|
Energy and Climate Change, global governance, Global Warming, Sustainability |
October 19, 2007
Sustainability reports usually have long chapters on the environmental and economic aspects, but struggle to address the social dimension. Therefore, I was encouraged to read yesterday’s press release that the ‘Commission promotes the social dimension of the Energy Community’. Stop here for the moment, and consider what defines the social dimension.
