There have been numerous discussions in the EU within the past months regarding Climate Change mitigation efforts and it is becoming apparent the EU wants to fortify some of its ambitious goals. Some recent events that highlight the emphasis on the EU’s restructuring of its goals, as well as the larger discussion surrounding climate change,...
One of the European Commission’s goals is to continue to explore the impacts of climate change and to determine effective responses that can be taken to lessen both present and future impacts. The European Commission is currently partnered with the Joint Programming Initiative on Climate Change, the Copernicus Climate Change Service, the Global Framework for...
Eco-industry has played a large role in the sustenance of the EU’s economy. The European Environment State and Outlook Report (SOER), which analyzed Europe’s green industries between 2000 and 2010, found that Europe’s green industries grew by 50%, despite the prevalence of economic busts during the time. In 2014, 4.2 million people in the EU...
The impact of COVID-19 on the world economy is huge. Closure of borders, restrictions on traveling, and dramatic reduction of commercial flights have led to an unprecedented drop in the number of tourists worldwide, nearly leading to a collapse of the tourism sector in many countries. Tourism is considered to be a major world industry...
The European Union accounts for 179 million hectares of forests which make up 44.6% of its land and approximately 5% of the world’s forests. Contrary to what is happening in many other places around the world, the EU has set a strategy for protecting and restoring the loss of forests, leading to a slow increase...
In her speech to the European Parliament on 26 March 2020, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen announced a series of packages to support the healthcare systems of EU countries. EUR 6 billion euro in total has been dedicated to financing the Emergency Support Instrument and RescEU, from which EUR 3...
To facilitate its transition away from fossil fuels towards clean energy and to deliver on the European Union’s commitments to the Paris Agreement, the EU embarked in 2019 on a comprehensive update of its energy policy framework. This new energy rulebook – known as the Clean Energy for All Europeans package – marks a significant...
The 1990s saw the first attempt of the EU to introduce a carbon tax. Strong industrial lobbying led to its failure. In 2005, EU succeeded to negotiate and introduce an alternative to a carbon tax known under the European Union Emissions Trading Systems or EU ETS. EU ETS follows the ‘cap and trade’ principle. It...
Ursula Von der Leyen, the new EU Commissioner, revealed a new set of policy initiatives brought forward by the new European Commission as ‘Europe’s man on the moon moment’. The commission has been in office since November 2019 in order to tackle climate change. The flagship initiative is a climate law which will commit EU...
