If you live in northern Europe you might have heard about a new “climate manifesto” from Vattenfall, Europe’s third-largest energy company which is wholly owned by the Swedish government.

With this “climate manifesto” Vattenfall is a trying to influence politicians and governments to put a global price on CO2 emissions, support (read financial support) climate friendly technologies and implement climate requirements for products. It all sounds good but this is just another greenwashing campaign from a dirty energy company.

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Action on the Maasvlakte: activists plant 18 flags, one for each nationality at the camp

As part of their global Quit Coal Campaign, Greenpeace activists from 18 different countries have today occupied the construction site of a new E.ON coal fired power plant on the Maasvlakte in Rotterdam, Netherlands. The construction of the plant has halted and the activists say they will stay until the coal plant is cancelled.

“E.ON is ignoring all science around climate change by insisting on plans to construct eight new European coal fired power plants. The plant in Rotterdam is intended to be the first, even though it has not yet been granted the necessary permits. The previous evening the activists put up tents, next to the building site, to bear witness to the unfolding climate disaster. Then at first light they moved onto the site, paralysing the construction of the plant.”

The activists have locked themselves onto strategic points at the construction site and occupied the building cranes.

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Photo credit: azrainman

A new report from WWF says that climate change is happening much faster than the scientists have predicated earlier. The report says that we must take action on a global scale to avert devastating climate effects such as more and heavier storms, flooding, droughts, crops failures, collapse of eco systems on land and sea and rising sea levels just to name a few.

Professor Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, Professor of Climatology and Environmental Sciences at the Université catholique de Louvain and newly elected Vice Chair of the IPCC, said that “it is clear that climate change is already having a greater impact than most scientists had anticipated, so it’s vital that international mitigation and adaptation responses become swifter and more ambitious.”

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photo credit: rockcohen

The governments of Italy and Poland are, as I write this, trying to weaken the already weak climate goals that the European Union agreed on in January. Italy and Poland blames their will to inaction against climate change because of the current financial crisis. They argue that they can’t afford to implement tough emissions targets on their industrial sector.

This is a fine example of ignorance from these right-wing governments in Europe. The climate package will not worsen the economy for Europe. Instead the plan will create millions of new green jobs, reduce our fuel costs and avert a catastrophe beyond our wildest dreams.

During a summit Nicolas Sarkozy said that they will look for “solutions” for those European countries who have expressed concerns about the climate goals and their economy. “The climate package is so important that we cannot simply drop it, under the pretext of a financial crisis,” said Nicolas Sarkozy, who currently holds the EU’s rotating presidency.

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photo credit: Nrbelex

George Monbiot says that the motor industry has long sabotaged eco-innovations and that they are now demanding billions to cut its carbon emissions. The green subsidy for car makers, Monbiot says, is just a disguised corporate bail-out.

“Their sabotage of green technology has been both subtle and comprehensive. The film Who Killed The Electric Car? shows how the manufacturers, working with oil companies and corrupt officials, sank California’s attempt to change vehicle technologies. Having bumped off battery power, they persuaded the federal government to pour money instead into hydrogen vehicles, aware that the technological hurdles are so high that a cheap, mass-produced model might never be possible. Electric cars, by contrast, have been ready for the mass market for almost a century. The $1.2bn that the US government is spending on research and development for hydrogen cars - like the €2bn pledged to the same quest by the European Union - is a subsidy for avoiding technological change.”

Continue to read over at the Guardian.

“Europe, it’s time to lead” and “keep global warming below 2°C”.

That is what a new campaign from Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, WWF and the Climate Action Network Europe is demanding. And they want you to help put pressure on your MEPs to take action now, before it’s too late.

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Last week the climate organisation Klimax (climax) held a large demonstration in central Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark. The demonstration was the first of many more planned by the organisation before December 2009 when the top UN climate meeting Cop15 will be held.

“Denmark is to host the UN COP15 climate summit in the late winter of 2009. We are going to make that summit one the leaders will never forget. We are going to raise our voices in ways they cannot escape. We are going to tell them that we are not going to accept them playing Russian Roulette with our climate anymore. They are the few yet the consequences of their actions affects every being on the planet. We are going to protest using Nonviolent Direct Action because we cannot allow some delegates to endanger the face of the planet anymore. It is time to take the power back.”

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The French President Nicolas Sarkozy earlier this summer launched, with the support of EU, a new Mediterranean union with the aim to “tackle issues such as regional unrest, immigration to pollution.”

The new international body will include 16 non-EU states from around the Mediterranean and all 27 EU member states. The union will focus on dealing with energy, security, counter-terrorism, immigration and trade. The union will include 756 million people from Western Europe to the Jordanian desert.

Some say that the Union was launched mainly because Nicolas Sarkozy wanted to “exchange” nuclear power expertise with North African gas reserves. Nicolas Sarkozy on the other hand says the union is supposed “to ensure the region’s people could love each other instead of making war.”

But some people are more positive and hope the union is the first steps towards large scale solar plants in northern Africa with focus of generating green and renewable electricity to Europe.

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Two senior foreign policy officials from the European Union says in a new report that the EU should “brace itself” for a new and much larger wave of migration, caused by the effects of climate change. According to their report climate change “threatens to severely destabilise the planet” and will make a fifth of the worlds population homeless.

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It has been almost one year since the last big fires were set in Europe. Last summer, many square kilometres of forests were burnt into ashes, with Greece being the most serious example. One year later, authorities have taken no measures to face similar problems.

Fires are rather often in Mediterranean ecosystems, due to the mild winter and the long dry summers. High temperatures and drought, in combination with dead leaves on the ground, often cause fires. But when referring to a natural process, often means every eight to ten years.

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