Search Results for: Climate change

BY MICHAEL KOSMIDES AND POORNA RODRIGO

NEW technologies in transport are offering delivery and wholesale managers potential fuel savings on their transport budgets, especially when the customer base is in a limited range from a wholesale hub. Some companies are looking at buying a fleet of electric cars and vans and assessing how much money can be saved – so depot managers used to operating standard combustion engine vehicles beware: green change could be looming.…

BY CARMEN PAUN, IN BRUSSELS, AND ROB STOKES

CRITICS of European Commission proposals for sweeping changes to audit practice and market regulation probably have a year or so to influence the final outcome.

This emerged in The CA’s interview with Jonathan Faull, the Commission’s director general for internal markets & services, about the so-called ‘Barnier proposals’ put forward by the European Union’s (EU) internal market Commissioner Michel Barnier.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL, MJ DESCHAMPS, PACIFICA GODDARD AND KARRYN MILLER

GOVERNMENTS can get things wrong – badly wrong – and alter the planet’s human and natural geography in ways that were never intended. And one of those embarrassing events is now unfolding: over the promotion of biofuels.…

BY LEE ADENDORFF, IN LUCCA

The Politecnico di Milano, one of Italy’s leading technical universities, has announced that from the beginning of the 2014 academic year, all Master of Science and PhD courses will be taught exclusively in English. The switch to English at the expense of Italian however has met with opposition from some of the institution’s professors, and 285 have signed a petition to the Rector.…

BY CARMEN PAUN, IN BRUSSELS

As the European Commission considers the shape of a new tobacco products directive, the industry and health groups clash over its content. The industry wants this legislation to be science-based and fair to the manufacturers of a legal and popular product.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission is preparing to abandon supporting the production of many first generation biofuels, after accepting analysis that their production and use generates as many carbon emissions as fossil fuels. European Union (EU) energy Commissioner Günther Oettinger and climate action Commissioner Connie Hedegaard have been tasked by a meeting of the College of Commissioners with jointly drafting legislation that will reform EU biofuels laws.…

BY MARK ROWE AND KEITH NUTHALL

THE WORLD’S oils and fats exporters probably drew a sigh of relief when Russia secured agreement for it to join the World Trade Organisation (WTO) last December. The country has a history of using unpredictable and, some say, arbitrary bans on food imports to punish exporting countries with which it is unhappy.…

BY MJ DESCHAMPS

THE BUZZ around intelligent textiles and garments may have continued for about a decade, with research projects and prototypes cropping up worldwide – however, the industry stays tip-toing on the brink of success, with barriers remaining in terms of consumer demand, cost and applications.…

BY HANA KAMARUDDIN, IN SELANGOR, MALAYSIA

"NEVER in my wildest dreams did I ever expect to be a deputy vice-chancellor," says Saran Kaur Gill, who fulfils that elevated role at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) where she runs UKM’s industry and community partnerships.…

BY MARK ROWE

WHEN the European Union (EU) set up the world’s first carbon trading market in 2001, the Emissions Trading System (ETS), advocates heralded a new dawn: carbon pollution could be brought under control in a way that benefited the environment while not damaging industrial interests.…