Search Results for: Environmental health

BY KEITH NUTHALL
DEVELOPED countries have agreed to enter into formal talks with developing countries, if poorer food exporting states encounter problems complying with any new food health restrictions imposed by richer importing trading partners. The commitment was framed in a Canadian proposal to the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) sanitary and phytosanitary measures committee under the ongoing Doha development round talks.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE ORGANISATION for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the European Environment Agency (EEA) have developed a database containing information on environmental taxes, subsidies, tradable emission permits, and deposit refund systems in 43 countries. They want to help public authorities choose environmental policies by providing examples from around the world.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission is taking the unusual step of taking the European Union (EU) Council of Ministers to court to try and force it to toughen moves to criminalise environmental offences across the EU.

Ministers in January adopted an EU Decision – without referring to other European institutions – that calls on Member States to criminalise wilful and negligent pollution, but leaves flexibility on what kind of offence is made a crime and on how it should be punished.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
AS AMERICAN and British military forces secure control of Iraq from the regime of dictator Saddam Hussein using the latest military technology, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has released a cautionary report confirming for the first time that depleted uranium shells can and have contaminated drinking water.…

Keith Nuthall
SMALL and medium-sized businesses (SME’s) have been asked to apply for around 40 grants between Euro 25,000 and 200,000 to finance national and trans-national European projects that promote the development and exchange of effective good practice in health and safety amongst companies.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Investment Bank has drawn up plans to lend Germany’s E.ON Energie Euro 300 million to fund a 2-year investment programme aiming at promoting energy efficiency within its electricity production and distribution facilities. An EIB note said that the money would fund “state-of-the-art energy management in electricity production including renewables,” adding that the money would be focused on research and development.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has offered to open up the European Union’s market in environmental services to suppliers based outside the EU, as part of the ongoing Doha Development Round at the World Trade Organisation.

If its trading partners offer adequate concessions in return, Brussels is offering to remove regulatory restrictions to foreign providers of waste water, sanitation, solid and hazardous waste management, soil clean-ups, air pollution reduction and similar services.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE FRENCH government has proposed a summit of G8 environment ministers, the creation of a strong World Environment Organisation, which would take over the responsibilities of the United Nations Environment Programme as well as those of environmental departments amongst other multilateral agencies.…

BY RICHARD HURST
INDIAN steel producer Tata Steel has launched an environmental impact assessment (EIA) study to determine the ecological feasibility of building a high carbon ferrochrome smelter in Richards Bay, Kwazulu-Natal. The project would attract tax relief from the South African Department of Trade and Industry’s Strategic Industrial Projects budget, with a potential subsidy being worth as much as Rand 480 million, (US$59.45 million).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has granted environmental approval to plans for extending the life of Germany’s Prosper Haniel Colliery, near near Bottrop in North-Rhine Westphalia, using its powers to protect the EU’s Natura 2000 conservation sites. Brussels said the potential ecological damage that may be caused by continued operations at Haniel was justified by “reasons of overriding public interest.”…