Search Results for: Climate change

BY KEITH NUTHALL
SWITZERLAND has struck a deal with the European Union (EU) over the controversial savings tax issue, agreeing to levy a flat tax on EU citizens holding accounts in the country. The decision means the Swiss have joined Austria, Belgium, Luxembourg, Andorra, Liechtenstein, Monaco and San Marino in imposing withholding taxes rather than change their laws on banking secrecy.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
The European Commissioner for transport and energy, Loyola de Palacio, has been given a special “Climate Killer Award” by a coalition of environmental NGOs including Friends of the Earth and the Climate Action Network. Mrs de Palacio was given the award, said the group, “in recognition of her repeated efforts to destabilise EU support for the Kyoto Protocol and related policies”.…

BY MARK ROWE
ALCOHOL products are one of the major strengths that the new members of the recently enlarged European Union (EU) bring to its economic table. Of the 10 newcomers, six are wine-producing countries: Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Malta, Slovakia and Slovenia.…

BY MARK ROWE
IT is understandable to see how the cosmetics industries in the European Union’s (EU) newest members might view the recent expansion of the EU club with mixed feelings. On the one hand, new markets have opened up: if their products are good enough to sell at home, they can now sell them from the Baltic to the Atlantic.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE HIGH price of utility services is restricting the number of European Union (EU) customers that switch between service providers, even when such choice is available, according to a new European Commission report on ‘fixed networks’ (also including gas, electricity and transport).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE SWEDISH government should clarify its long-term intentions regarding nuclear energy, to attract sufficient investment guaranteeing the country’s future energy supplies, the International Energy Agency (IEA) has said. Whilst praising Sweden’s “sensible” combination of market forces with government influence in electricity markets, the IEA assessment says there is too much uncertainty over the future of Swedish nuclear power.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EUROPEAN scientists have extracted a 740,000-year-old ice core from the Antarctic and think by analysing its contents they will predict how the world’s climate will respond to today’s unprecedented levels of carbon dioxide. Initial tests show that these are higher than they have been for 440,000 years.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Commission has brushed aside a demand by Italy to be allowed to continue marketing Tocai Friulano wine after 2007 when an agreement permitting its use of the name expires. The European Union (EU) agreed in 1993 that the name Tokai should be reserved for Hungary after 2007 but Italy claims that the entry of that country into the EU in May this year changes the rules and it is seeking a legal interpretation to this effect from the European Court of Justice (ECJ).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has started detailed work on proposals for a Seventh Framework Programme of research grants, which could command twice as much money as the existing (sixth) programme to Euro 40 billion and would include space and technology budgets for the first time.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE NUMBER of people worldwide at risk from devastating floods will double from one billion today to two billion by 2050 without greater efforts to prevention and predict such disasters, United Nations University (UNU) specialists have claimed. In a first detailed policy statement from a new UNU environment and human security institute in Bonn, Germany, they point out floods currently annually inflict “up to 25,000 annual deaths, extensive homelessness, disaster-induced disease, crop and livestock damage and other serious harm” on over 520 million people.…