European parliamentarians are questioning whether the United Arab Emirates should have been taken off the “gray list” of countries at risk of money laundering and terrorist financing, following revelations that Dubai property owners include a host of dubious characters like drug lords and sanctioned businessmen. In mid-May, OCCRP and more than 70 international media outlets...
Last September, I had argued why “a war of arms and a peace of commerce cannot co-exist”. This is a follow up to that and events of the last 2 years sadly reinforce the point. With Russia’s GDP (troublingly) growing by 3.6% in 2023, Putin is overseeing the fastest-growing G7 economy with unemployment at an...
Extreme heat, drought, wildfires, and flooding, as experienced in recent years, will worsen in Europe even under optimistic global warming scenarios and affect living conditions throughout the continent. The EEA has published the first ever European Climate Risk Assessment (EUCRA) to help identify policy priorities for climate change adaptation and for climate-sensitive sectors. According to the assessment,...
Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the European Union (EU) has pursued policies aimed at shifting its energy sources away from Russia. This has resulted in a decline in the bloc’s dependence on Russian energy. Meanwhile, Russia has focused on exporting oil and natural gas to regions outside the EU to maintain...
Britain imposed sanctions Monday against four Israeli nationals, accused of violently attacking Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. British Foreign Secretary David Cameron called the four individuals “extremist Israeli settlers” and imposed strict financial and travel restrictions on them because of what was described as their “egregious abuses of human rights.” “Extremist Israeli settlers are...
Countries at the COP28 climate talks need to stop posturing, aim high and agree on a way to end the “fossil fuel era as we know it”, UN climate chief Simon Stiell said on Wednesday, as tension over the future of coal, oil and gas came to the fore. The UN climate chief was speaking as the two-week...
Britain has signaled plans to water down its position on a core part of COP28 negotiations just weeks before the global climate talks begin. Energy and Climate Minister Graham Stuart, who will head the U.K. delegation to the COP summit, told MPs Wednesday that he was not fixated on whether countries agree to “phasing down”...
Since their inception more than 30 years ago, carbon offsets have given false comfort to those seeking easy solutions to the climate crisis. Encouraging one party to continue pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, while paying another to do the opposite has been a giant diversion: side-tracking us from decarbonising our economies and lives. One scandal after another has...
EU environment ministers scrapped a commitment to lift its greenhouse gas emissions reduction target after several countries held back during many hours of negotiations over the proposals thebloc will present to the upcoming UN climate summit. Poland, Hungary and Italy objected to a pledge to increase the bloc’s emissions reduction target from 55 per cent...
European Union countries’ climate ministers meet on Monday to decide the bloc’s negotiating position for this year’s COP28 summit – but they are still split over some key issues, like how hard to push for a global deal to phase out fossil fuels. The EU is typically one of the most ambitious negotiators at the...