English Blogactiv Posts - EU Blog Platform

Archives for Sustainable Development

New technology platform: geoEnergia

June 29, 2010

On 24th June 2010, the Slovak National Technology Platform ‘geoEnergia’ was established as a coordinating group composed of stakeholders coming from various areas, relevant to geothermal energy. And Geothermania was there. Since last Thursday the research and development in Slovakia has been boosted by new platform called geoEnergia. It has become the first one in… » read more

Energy and Climate Change, Energy technologies, English, Sustainable Development, sustainable energy

Saving Tropical Forests should become a Top Priority

June 7, 2010

Outside the oceans tropical forests constitute the biggest carbon reservoir on earth. 289 billion tons carbon are sequestered in all forests on earth, and 0.5 billion tons of carbon are lost every year through net deforestation. It is of crucial importance for the global climate to maintain the present stock of forests for the indefinite… » read more

Biodiversity, C02 Emission, Energy and Climate Change, English, Environmentalism, greeneconomy, Greenhouse, renewables, Sustainable Development

US Presidential candidates battle over “energy independence”

August 8, 2008

Contrary to global warming which is barely an issue in the presidential campaign, energy policy and the dream of weaning America off its “addiction” to foreign oil has become one of the main battlegrounds between candidates Obama and McCain. But do they really understand what is at stake? High oil prices and a 4 dollar… » read more

Climate change, Energy and Climate Change, energy security, Sustainable Development, US climate policy

Protecting biodiversity: no moral obligation, just pure economic self-interest.

May 31, 2008

This week’s UN summit on biodiversity ended with some hopeful results but there is still a lack of full awareness that protecting the planet’s eco-systems is much more than a moral obligation. “We have a moral obligation to be careful stewards of the planet for future generations”, said EU Commission President Barroso in his speech… » read more

Barroso, Biodiversity, Sustainability, Sustainable Development

European Commission blind to sustainability challenges of globalisation

April 15, 2008

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

Inconvenient questions

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

Sustainability, Sustainable Development

A global “war room” to fight climate war?

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

Millennium Goals: Let’s just pay back our debts

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

It is time for a “Davos for sustainability”

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

Sustainability, Sustainable Development

Another Cassandra call? WEF’s pessimistic outlook for 2008

January 10, 2008

A system-wide financial crisis, food insecurity, supply chain disruptions and climate and energy chaos are the four major global risks for the coming year according to a report released on 9 January by the World Economic Forum. The report “Global Risks 2008” comes two weeks before the yearly WEF meeting in Davos and highlights most… » read more

Energy and Climate Change, energy security, global governance, Sustainable Development

Post-oil development policy starts here (or maybe not?)

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

Unsustainable Vacation

July 19, 2007

I have the good fortune of getting to pop around between Central Europe’s finest cities all year round. From my home to Amsterdam, to Berlin, to Paris, to Brussels, and everything in between. One thing I notice is each city’s effort to adopt environmentally sound policies in areas like waste management, energy use, fuel, architecture,… » read more

Sustainable Development

The missed opportunity of the 2007 Berlin Declaration

May 20, 2007

In a comment to the first post of this blog, Raymond van Ermen wrote the following: “The Berlin Declaration celebrating the EU’s 50th anniversary is very disappointing for two reasons : o In January 2007, President Barroso named sustainability as one of the EU’s five key values, to be enshrined in the Berlin Declaration celebrating… » read more

Energy and Climate Change, European Union, Resource scarcity, Sustainable Development
EurActiv Network