News & Press
By Miriam Vicente Marcos on 25 Feb 2021
Taking aim at the economic and climate crises – but do member states’ recovery plans really hit the target?
Italy, Spain, Hungary, and Romania’s National Recovery and Resilience Plans (NRRPs) may well be off-target (and Poland hasn’t published one yet). By not covering in sufficient detail all aspects of the green transition in their plans, these member states could be missing out on the chance to use EU recovery funds to tackle the economic…
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By Elisa Martellucci on 7 Jul 2020
What role for national energy and climate plans in the COVID-19 recovery?
The national energy and climate plans can help chart Europe’s way out of the COVID-19 pandemic and into carbon-free societies. This is not the time to weaken them but to make them stronger, while better involving all relevant stakeholders in their development and implementation. The national energy and climate plans (NECPs) are a key pillar…
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By Kaisa Amaral on 24 Jun 2020
More climate action through better planning
This article is a summary of an interview published on the European Commission website 15 June 2020 Stopping the climate crisis will require us to substantially cut carbon emissions across all sectors of the economy, as well as to rapidly transition to a zero-carbon energy mix. To this end, European Union member states need to…
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By Agnese Ruggiero on 25 Sep 2019
Climate strikes: people do not want to be left behind, and governments should listen to them
People from all walks of life took to the streets on Friday 20 September demanding urgent climate action from their governments. But so far our leaders are not only failing to deliver the kind of emission cuts needed to stop the climate crisis but also to involve citizens in their climate decision-making. More and more…
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By Agnese Ruggiero on 9 Apr 2019
EU countries need to step up efforts to align three key areas of climate action – report
The EU is on track to meet its 2020 greenhouse gas emissions reduction target but needs to increase efforts in energy efficiency and renewables, according to the European Commission’s latest State of the Energy Union report. All three components are needed if the EU is to meet its 2030 climate targets. Today, the European Commission…
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By Agnese Ruggiero on 25 Oct 2018
National Energy and Climate Plans: a strong tool to implement the Paris Agreement but only if participative and ambitious
Engaging in a dialogue with all stakeholders is imperative for effective policy making, to ensure that the measures put forward can count on public support, and guarantee proper implementation. In the coming months, a particularly important opportunity for the active engagement of multi-level stakeholders will be the development and implementation of National Energy and Climate…
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By Guest: Soumya Dutta on 12 Jun 2018
Sham consultations, ruthless exploitation: CDM project experience in India
Guest article by Soumya Dutta, Beyond Copenhagen collective, India India hosts a big share of climate mitigation projects under the UN’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). Many of these projects have blatantly violated the rights of affected communities and stakeholder consultations are carried out rarely if ever, writes Soumya Dutta. The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) was…
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By Gilles Dufrasne on 24 May 2018
Learning from Barro Blanco: how to improve public participation in climate projects
As negotiations on the Paris Agreement rules approach the finish line, it will be important to ensure that future climate mitigation projects respect human rights and the environment. Ever since flood waters started to rise at the Barro Blanco hydro dam site on the Tabasará river in Panama, destroying agricultural lands, cultural sites, and numerous…
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By Gilles Dufrasne, Eva Filzmoser on 16 May 2018
The road ahead for UN carbon markets
Another round of UN climate talks closed on May 10th in Bonn, where negotiators discussed the “Paris Agreement rulebook”, a set of rules to regulate how commitments put forward in Paris can be implemented starting in 2020. The rulebook is to be finalised by the UN climate change conference (COP24) in December this year in…
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By Eva Filzmoser | Pierre-Jean Brasier on 30 Nov 2017
Closing a (violent) chapter: Santa Rita hydro dam project officially cancelled
In October, the private sector lending arm of the World Bank Group (International Finance Corporation, IFC) confirmed the cancellation of a controversial Santa Rita hydroelectric project in Guatemala, approved under the UN’s carbon offsetting scheme Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). The announcement follows a report by the IFC Ombudsman which found serious failings in the project…
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