Greenpeace Blog

The (Not Very) Weekly Geek: Wave power

Posted by bex — 29 September 2008 at 11:48am - Comments

EfficienCity - wave power

A screengrab from our virtual, climate-friendly town, EfficienCity

With the UK government apparently bending over backwards to stop renewable energy development at the moment, it's refreshing to hear some good news from elsewhere in Europe; the world's first commercial wave power farm has gone live in Portugal.

Endangered, but still on the menu

Posted by Willie — 26 September 2008 at 1:39pm - Comments

Bluefin tuna

Catch them while you can - endangered bluefin tuna © Greenpeace/Gavin Newman

When we said a few weeks ago that customers of the Nobu chain of high-class sushi restaurants wouldn't be aware that the bluefin tuna being served there was endangered, we never thought they would respond to our complaint in quite such a literal manner. But now diners can clearly see which dishes include tuna from endangered stocks because it's written on the menu. As reported in the Sunday Telegraph and as a result of Greenpeace's investigative work and subsequent discussions with Nobu, customers at the up-market eatery will now be able to clearly identify the endangered species on the menu.

Roundup: Kingsnorth in the news

Posted by bex — 26 September 2008 at 11:12am - Comments

Kingsnorth

There are a few interesting stories about Kingsnorth on the web today:

The Independent reveals that the cabinet is split over the Kingsnorth decision: "John Hutton, the Business Secretary, wants to approve the project even if it is not chosen for an experiment in which its carbon emissions would be "captured" and stored under the sea. But his position is strongly opposed by Hilary Benn, the environment secretary, and his predecessor David Miliband, now the foreign secretary."

Across the pond meanwhile, Al Gore has renewed his call for young people to engage in civil disobedience over new coal plants, saying: "If you're a young person looking at the future of this planet and looking at what is being done right now, and not done, I believe we have reached the stage where it is time for civil disobedience to prevent the construction of new coal plants that do not have carbon capture and sequestration".

Last but by no means least, the Kingsnorth Six have made it into the New York Times. Happy reading.

European Parliament votes to cut emissions from cars

Posted by jamie — 26 September 2008 at 10:57am - Comments

Activists from Greenpeace Spain climbed the Osborne Bull, an internationally known symbol of Spanish roads, to "protect" him from increasing CO2 emissions from cars Some great news has come in from Greenpeace lobbyists at the European Parliament, where the EU environment committee have given the thumbs up to reducing CO2 emissions produced by cars.

The group of MEPs resisted efforts by German car manufacturers to weaken down the proposals and have recommended that by 2012 all new cars should emit no more than 130g of CO2 per km (the current EU average is 158g). Even those this doesn't match the 120g level we and other groups were proposing, this is a big turnaround as when the committee went into session, it seemed certain a compromise package riddled with loopholes would get the nod.

UK sabotages European renewables deal - again

Posted by bex — 26 September 2008 at 10:06am - Comments

Solar panels

Just under a year ago, we revealed that Gordon Brown was planning to scupper the vital, and binding, European climate change deal to generate 20 per cent of energy from renewable sources by 2020.

A brouhaha ensued; EU leaders were so furious at the UK's underhanded shenanigans that a red-faced Brown had to explicitly re-commit to the target soon afterwards.

Well, leaked documents (pdf) show it's happened again. This time, the man weilding the wrecking ball is John Hutton, the Business Secretary with an inordinate fondness for coal and nuclear power.

Have you felt the forest love?

Posted by jamie — 25 September 2008 at 1:38pm - Comments

If you submitted your own Forest Love video in response to ours, you might catch a glimpse of yourself in the new video we've put together below which we're going to deliver to European Commission president José Manuel Barroso in Brussels. The commission are due to vote on legislation to ban illegal timber in Europe and hopefully that will take place in mid-October, but the date has changed several times over the past few weeks so who knows?

Have your questions answered by the climate change minister

Posted by jamie — 25 September 2008 at 9:55am - Comments

This is short notice but climate change minister Joan Ruddock will be taking questions today between 12.30pm-1.30pm on the Guardian website. Post your queries in the comments on this page and hopefully the lovely Joan will provide a response.

There are so many things to ask, but top of my list is how the government plans to meet any of its emissions targets when it's so keen to expand airports and build new coal power stations. Even though the question has already been asked, it certainly won't hurt to ask it again.

Rhetoric vs reality

Posted by bex — 24 September 2008 at 10:44am - Comments

Yesterday: "I want British companies and British workers to seize the opportunity and lead the world in the transformation to a low carbon economy and I believe that we can create in modern green manufacturing and service one million new jobs" - Gordon Brown.

Today: British Energy is sold to French nuclear company EDF for £12.5 billion, exporting thousands of potential UK jobs to France, dealing a hammer blow to our chances of meeting our legally binding Renewables Obligation. 

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