News

An overview of all new items related to this topic.

• Millennium Development Goals: progress expected, but not enough and not everywhere

  

  Newsitem | 02-07-2009

  More than a billion people live in poverty, without adequate food, safe drinking water or clean energy. Aimed at providing basic quality of life, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are leading on the agenda for development policies. Although substantial ... read more

• Global CO2 emissions: annual increase halved in 2008

  

  Newsitem | 25-06-2009

  Very high oil prices together with a worldwide financial crisis have caused a halving of the annual increase in global emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) from fossil fuel consumption and cement production. High energy prices and the recession have decreased ... read more

• Large contribution of HFC emissions to global warming expected

  

  Newsitem | 23-06-2009

  By 2050, the effect of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) on global warming will be as large as that of 14% of global CO2 emissions, in business-as-usual scenarios. HFCs are strong greenhouse gases, and are used more and more in refrigeration and air conditioning. ... read more

• New assessments must answer the question ‘What are priority actions?’

  

  Newsitem | 11-06-2009

  Eight global assessments and outlooks in the field of environment and sustainable development, published in the last two years (2007-2008), have painted a concurrent picture of the world’s major challenges of environmentally sustainable development. ... read more

• Worldwide greenhouse gas emissions growing faster since 2000

  

  Newsitem | 26-05-2009

  New data show that global man-made greenhouse gas emissions increased 15% between 2000 and 2005, representing a sharp jump in the rate of emissions growth, which was 3% for the period 1990-1995 and 6% between 1995 and 2000. These conclusions are based ... read more

• Global climate policy will reduce outdoor air pollution

  

  Newsitem | 15-04-2009

  A stringent global climate policy will lead to considerable improvements in local air quality and consequently improves health. Measures to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases to 50% of 2005 levels, by 2050, can reduce the number of premature deaths ... read more

• Electric driving; an attractive challenge

  

  Newsitem | 23-02-2009

  Large-scale use of electric vehicles could drastically reduce CO2 emissions, especially if more electricity would be generated by sustainable energy. Moreover, using electric vehicles would diminish city noise pollution. Obstacles currently consist ... read more

• Climate benefits of changing diet

  

  Newsitem | 13-02-2009

  Reducing global meat consumption would reduce greenhouse gas emissions and cut the costs of climate policy substantially. This is the result of a PBL study published in Climatic Change. Apart from a reduction in methane and N2O emissions, vast agricultural ... read more

• High emission reductions are necessary for Annex I countries to meet the EU climate target

  

  Newsitem | 03-02-2009

  This study analyses the possible approaches to greenhouse gas abatement by industrialised (Annex I) countries, to calculate their comparability. The reduction targets for Annex I countries and the abatement costs of achieving these different aggregated ... read more

• Near-linear cost increase to reduce climate-change risk

  

  Newsitem | 13-01-2009

  The relationship between the costs of climate policy and the risks of climate change may look more favorable than commonly perceived. These findings are recently published in PNAS. The research analyzed the relationship between mitigation costs and ... read more

• Climate: Developing countries have to cut emissions by 15 to 30 percent

  

  Newsitem | 08-12-2008

  Studies from IPCC and the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency show that industrialised countries can achieve stabilisation at 450 ppm, if their emissions are reduced by 25 to 40% below 1990 levels, by 2020. Developing countries need to reduce ... read more

• Poverty reduction, climate change and biodiversity loss to be tackled as an integrated global problem

  

  Newsitem | 22-07-2008

  The world is too small to simultaneously produce enough food (including meat) for everyone and to deliver biofuels on a large enough scale to slow down climate change and maintain biodiversity. The Netherlands in a Sustainable World (second sustainability ... read more

• Global CO2 emissions increased by 3% in 2007; China contributing two-thirds to increase

  

  Newsitem | 13-06-2008

  In 2007, global emissions of the carbon dioxide (CO2) from fossil fuel use and cement production increased by 3.1%; in 2006 the emissions increased by 3.5%. High fuel prices worldwide and relatively warm winters in Europe and Asia have mitigated the ... read more

• Bioenergy has long-term potential

  

  Newsitem | 11-06-2008

  Potentially, biomass can make a major contribution to the global energy demand in the long term. In 2050, possibly 25-40% of future world energy demand could be produced by making use of crop residues and the production of specific energy crops. It ... read more

• Responsibility greenhouse gas emissions of Member States shifts to European level

  

  Newsitem | 23-04-2008

  National targets for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions will become less important when the proposals by the European Commission on Climate and Energy, released earlier this year, will be approved by the European Parliament and the European ... read more

• International Environmental Policy stands no chance without Brazil, Russia, India and China

  

  Newsitem | 05-03-2008

  International environmental policy has a chance of succeeding, only if Brazil, Russia, India and China participate, and if swift action is taken; only then will it be affordable and feasible. The OECD Environmental Outlook to 2030 projects that world ... read more

• Current biofuels do not add to the sustainability of transport

  

  Newsitem | 04-03-2008

  The climate has more to gain from converting biomass into electricity, than to use it to replace petrol or diesel. Therefore, proposals to replace current transport fuels by biofuels are not the best investment in sustainability. This is shown in the ... read more

• EU 2020 climate target requires five-fold increase in impact of CO2 policies

  

  Newsitem | 16-01-2008

  MNP has estimated that without environmental policies in the EU between 1990 and 2005, emissions of the six greenhouse gases under the Kyoto Protocol would have been approximately 7 % higher in 2005 than they were in reality. Achieving the 2020 EU ... read more

• Industrialised countries to collectively meet 2010 Kyoto target

  

  Newsitem | 11-12-2007

  In 2010 the total greenhouse gases emissions produced by industrialised countries with a Kyoto target, will probably be about 11% lower than in the base year 1990. If the present trend (2000-2005) continues, the countries with a quantitative emission ... read more

• IPCC Co-chair Bert Metz of the Netherlands’ MNP at the Nobel Prize ceremony

  

  Newsitem | 06-12-2007

  On the 10th of December the Nobel Peace Prize will be awarded to co-laureates, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and Al Gore, at the prize-giving ceremony in Oslo, Norway. Bert Metz, co-chair of the IPCC working group III on mitigation ... read more