The International Energy Agency (IEA) regularly conducts in-depth peer reviews of the energy policies of its member countries. This process supports energy policy development and encourages the exchange of international best practices and experiences. Since the last IEA review in 2015, Spain has solved a long-standing issue of tariff deficits …
Warm weather in 2007 helped the European Union towards its target of cutting global warming gases under the UN Kyoto Protocol for fighting climate change, but Spain, Italy and Ireland remained way off track. Soaring transport emissions also offset many of the advances made by the 27-nation bloc, EU data …
The global economic downturn has aggravated human rights violations and distracted attention from abuses, Amnesty International said on Thursday. The world faced a grave danger that "rising poverty and desperate economic and social conditions could lead to political instability and mass violence," the rights group's secretary-general, Irene Khan, wrote in …
Solar power plants in deserts using mirrors to concentrate the sun's rays have the potential to generate up to a quarter of the world's electricity by 2050, a report by pro-solar groups said on Monday. The study, by environmental group Greenpeace, the European Solar Thermal Electricity Association (ESTELA) and the …
The head of the World Health Organization said Thursday she would not hesitate to raise the global pandemic alert to the top of the six-point scale if the new H1N1 flu is spreading globally. But with pressure growing for her to factor in the severity of the newly-discovered disease as …
One fifth of Europe's reptiles and nearly a quarter of its amphibians are in danger because of the threat humans pose to their natural habitat, according to a study carried out for the European Commission. The tortoise family, vipers, wall lizards such as the Tenerife speckled lizard, and pond turtles …
Nearly 50 years spent fishing from tiny sailboats have taught Manuel de Oliveira the power of the wind, but he was mystified when white windmills began springing up along the coast near his town. "I did think they were pretty strange," he said as he shook his net out on …
Brazil's wind energy sector is expected to take off this year, boosted by the government's first auction for projects in the renewable energy source on November 25. Following are some of the main investments, current and planned, in the sector. - Enerfin, a unit of Spain's Elecnor, operates the biggest …
Protesters in the Amazon basin have forced Peru's state energy company to shut its crude oil pipeline, a company official said on Monday as the government tries to end weeks of demonstrations over natural resources. Indigenous communities have blocked roads and waterways to pressure the government to revoke investment laws …
German solar companies that have not yet set up US and Chinese production plants are likely to lose out on significant subsidies and will struggle to bring down their production costs to the levels of their Asian peers. Announcements of solar subsidy programmes in the two countries have supported the …
Protesters angry over oil and natural gas developments in Peru's resource-rich Amazon vowed on Friday to defy the government and step up demonstrations that have disrupted operations at energy companies. A private-sector source told Reuters that as many as 41 vessels serving energy companies are stuck along jungle rivers, unable …
China's drive into wind power has been a boon to the young industry, but foreign turbine makers say China has stacked the odds so firmly against them that its own clean energy goals could be in jeopardy. China's wind power generation has doubled in the last year and is expected …
Coastal states have now made their bids for vast new areas of continental shelf You never know what may come in handy. That is the principle behind the rush for the seabed that reached a climax of sorts this week with the deadline on May 13th for lodging claims to …
Power generation from renewable sources such as wind turbines, solar cells and biomass plays a small but important part in satisfying total electricity demand around the world, and is growing at an exponential rate thanks to generous public subsidies and government support. Renewable sources have increased their share of worldwide …
The global recession and tight credit conditions have cast a chill on the solar-power industry after years of breakneck growth, and could usher in long-term changes in the industry. Banks have curtailed financing for major solar projects, and Spain
Of all the potential global disasters that we periodically list and examine, only one has threatened repeatedly to become a reality: the flu, a variety of which is now spreading quickly across the world. A global flu epidemic seems a feeble threat compared to an asteroid impact or a nuclear …
Swine flu has become widespread in the United States, with 226 cases in 30 states and more expected to turn up in additional states in the next few days, federal health officials said Sunday.
Slowly but surely, the virus commonly known as swine flu continued to spread across the globe Friday, as the number of confirmed cases rose from 257 to 331, the World Health Organization in Geneva reported. In Europe, authorities voiced fears that the virus was now being transferred within their own …
The World Health Organization said Thursday that a new flu strain continued to spread, particularly in Mexico and the U.S., but refrained from declaring a global pandemic even as more countries confirmed cases. Amid a growing debate around the globe about travel restrictions, the United Nations public-health agency raised the …
- European Union ministers called on Thursday for urgent action to tighten hunting controls on sharks, which are seriously threatened by chronic overfishing and one of the world's most vulnerable predators. Only two out of dozens of shark species in EU waters have annual catch quotas, instituted about a year …
