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.

(more…)

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.

(more…)

The European Commissioner for energy policy, Andris Piebalgs, said yesterday during the press conference where the EU unveiled its plan of action against climate change:

In a time of growing oil prices and climate change concerns, renewable energy sources is an opportunity that we cannot miss. They will help us to reduce our CO2 emissions, strengthen our security of supply and develop jobs and growth in a high tech developing sector. If we do the effort now, Europe will be the leader in the race towards the low carbon economy that the planet so desperately needs.

Press Release: Boosting growth and jobs by meeting our climate change commitments

Yesterday the European Union agreed on a plan of action against climate change. The aim is a 20% cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 from the European countries. But the aim could be increased to 30% if other countries follow suite.

To be able to reach the 20% cuts in greenhouse gas emissions by year 2020 the European Commission have outlined four measures that will help them achieve the goal:

(more…)