None of the oil companies that have a license to drill in the seas surrounding Greenland have applied for one in 2014, according to the environment NGO Greenpeace. Oil companies that want to drill in Greenland will have to apply before 1 February, but according to Greenland’s Mining Agency, no applications have been received thus…

French Environment Minister Philippe Martin reiterated his government’s strong opposition to the exploitation of shale gas, despite a parliamentary report advocating more flexibility towards unconventional gas. The French government says it will not issue the permits for shale gas exploitation requested by the US company Hess Oil, Martin, the energy and ecology minister, announced on…

An English-language sign at the fishermen’s pier in the Croatian town of Umag reads: “This fishing port was rebuilt with the support of the European Union”. But most of the 3,700 fishermen who ply their trade in Croatia’s eastern Adriatic fear that the country’s accession to the EU on 1 July, and strict new laws…

Denmark’s tax on nitrogen oxide emissions, which was raised during the financial crisis, could be scrapped if it’s proven to have a negative impact on jobs and competitiveness. The centre-left Danish government, which was formed in October 2011, decided at the end of that year to raise the tax from 5 to 25 Danish crowns…

When a London anti-pollution organisation polled British lawmakers about the greatest risks to public health, most MPs were wrong, ranking traffic accidents or heavy drinking ahead of air pollution as a leading killer of Britons. “The vast majority of over 100 members of Parliament responding to our survey displayed a shocking level of ignorance about…

The gap has widened between the fuel-efficiency that carmakers declare for their models and the reality for drivers, with luxury German vehicles showing the biggest divergence, a study has found. The research by the non-profit International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) found “real-world” carbon emissions for new cars based on fuel consumption are about 25%…

The European Commission agreed to impose punitive import duties on solar panels from China in a move to guard against what it sees as dumping of cheap goods in Europe, prompting a cautious response from Beijing which called for further dialogue. EU commissioners backed EU Trade Chief Karel De Gucht’s proposal to levy the provisional…

A technology developed with the University of Delaware has sold power from electric vehicles to the power grid for the first time, the power company NRG Energy Inc said on Friday (26 April). In a joint statement, the university and NRG said that they began work on the so-called eV2g program in September 2011 to…

Sea ice in the Arctic is disappearing at a far greater rate than previously expected, according to data from the first purpose-built satellite launched to study the thickness of the Earth’s polar caps. Preliminary results from the European Space Agency’s CryoSat-2 probe indicate that 900 cubic kilometres of summer sea ice has disappeared from the…

World leaders attending the recent Rio+20 conference agreed to promote sustainable consumption and production, but analysts say getting businesses and buyers to do just that will require far more than words on paper. To the immense disappointment of environmental groups and even some multinational corporations, Rio+20 failed to produce binding commitments or a plan on…