News in Brief

February 16 2007: CO2

At a two-day meeting in the US world leaders reached a new agreement on tackling the issues of climate change. Delegates agreed that developing countries will have to face targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions as well as rich countries.

The meeting in Washington of the G8+5 Climate Change Dialogue group -including China and India also agreed that a Global market should be formed to cap and trade carbon emissions.

February 27 2007: Ryanair boss slams flight tax

The Chancellor Gordon Brown’s air passenger duty was simply “a bloody tax grab” and had nothing to do with the environment, an airline boss claimed. Ryanair chief Michael O’Leary told the Parliamentary Monitor everyone has been “sucked in” by the duty because they thought it was an environment issue.

Thursday 8 March 2007

Expedia plans carbon move

Expedia unveiled plans for the first global carbon offset programme for corporate travel. The travel website was teamed up with a US company to offer businesses the ability to calculate the amount of CO2 emitted from employee travel and buy the correspondin amount of carbon offsets. Expedia says its own travel programme will be carbon neutral by the end of this year.

FoE

Friends of the Earth today demanded the EU cuts domestic emissions of greenhouse gases by 30 percent by 2020. The EU Spring Council in Brussels is due to set targets for Europe’s energy future at a series of meetings.

'Binding' carbon targets proposed


Tuesday 13 March 2007

Britain could become the first country to set legally binding carbon reduction targets under plans unveiled by Environment Secretary David Miliband.

The draft Climate Change Bill calls for an independent panel to set ministers a "carbon budget" every five years, in a bid to cut emissions by 60% by 2050.

If they miss the figure, future governments could be taken to court.

The Tories and Lib Dems welcomed the proposals, but said carbon budgets should be set annually.
Flights

A full Climate Change Bill is set to be published in the autumn.

At the weekend, the Conservatives unveiled environmental proposals including VAT or fuel duty on domestic flights.

But Mr Miliband said more focus was needed on cutting carbon emissions from homes, citing government plans to make all new houses carbon-neutral by 2016 and encourage the use of energy-efficient light bulbs.

The Liberal Democrats said they broadly supported the aims of the climate change bill but urged closer monitoring of a government's green progress.