Mayors from 400 cities around Europe have signed the Covenant of Mayors agreement and promised to go beyond EU’s 20% by 2020 energy and climate goals.

The whole idea with the Covenant of Mayors pact is to “go beyond” EU’s 20% greenhouse gas emission cuts and 20% renewable energy by 2020. The German city Hamburg plans to reduce emissions by 40 percent by 2020. Paris on the other hand says it hopes to reduce emissions by 25 percent over the same period.

EU’s Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs said the plan, which will affect 80 million Europeans, is equivalent to reforest each year a surface larger than the whole of Hungary, or taking out from the streets more than 35 million cars or closing down 20 coal-fired 50MW power plants. At a conservative estimation the plan will save around €8 billion ($10.4 billion) in energy costs every year.

“Most of the energy produced in Europe is consumed in urban areas. The battle against climate change will have to fought and won in the cities. This is why, the commitment shown by Mayors across Europe by signing the Covenant of Mayors send us a strong message of hope, particularly in the difficult times that we are facing “, said Commissioner Piebalgs.

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The Swedish right-wing government seems hell-bent on continue its climate wrecking journey. After calling for as much as 88% of the EU emission cuts to be allowed to do overseas in development countries the government now want to scrap a 30-year-old ban on the building of nuclear power plants.

“The Swedish plan was agreed by the center-right coalition government and foresees the building of new reactors at the 10 sites where reactors still are operating. Under the plan, which still needs approval from the country’s parliament, Sweden would replace existing reactors gradually.”

While ignoring the 1980 referendum when a majority of the Swedish people voted to end expansion and completely phase out nuclear energy they also seem to take no notice of the facts that nuclear energy is still dangerous, not cost-effective, and too expensive and will even worsen climate change.

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The Guardian shows some rather striking images from photographs and computer models that shows the ‘before and after’ of how both nature and humans are making an impact on the planet.

The images show the effect of deforestation in Bolivia and Madagascar, how dams change the surrounding landscapes in Turkey and how rising sea levels will affect Florida. But one of the most powerful images is probably the one that shows how Lake Chad, once one of the largest lakes in Africa, has shrink to 5% its former size due to a warmer climate.

The images comes from a newly released book called “Fragile Earth: Views of a Changing World“.

Some other pictures worth checking out are “Our destructive impact on the planet” and “How Spain will be affected by climate change“.