The practice of ‘small steps poorly implemented’ is clearly now insufficient and inappropriate to protect Europe from harmful chemicals, polluted air, climate change and plastic pollution. This is the warning of Europe’s largest network of environmental NGOs in a paper published for the governments of Romania, Finland and Croatia – the next three countries to hold the EU’s rotating presidency. The European Environmental Bureau (EEB) is Europe’s largest network of environmental citizens’ (...)

Two years after the suspension of the highly controversial Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), EU member states and the European Commission are preparing mandates for new trade negotiations with the US. But not much has changed : once again corporate lobby groups roam the corridors of EU negotiators working to set the agenda for the talks, while the European Commission covers over its links with big business. Two years after the suspension of the Transatlantic Trade and (...)

Long ago, in a distant geological era—when Donald Trump hosted a reality show, when Senator Barack Obama doubted whether Hillary Clinton could be president, when the Earth was one-third of a degree Celsius cooler—Al Gore made a prediction. When Americans understood what climate change would mean for their children and grandchildren, the former vice president warned, “they will demand that whoever is running for office, whoever is elected to serve, will have to respond.” For 12 years, (...)

More than 60 international, European and national civil society groups call on European decision makers to uphold the Paris Agreement and not mandate new trade negotiations with the USA. Corporate Europe Observatory is one of these signatories. Today, more than 60 international, European and national civil society groups have called on European decision makers to uphold the Paris Agreement and not mandate new trade negotiations with the (...)

Right now, vast swathes of Russia are covered in “illegal” forests. 10% of all the forest in Russia (that’s an area about twice the size of Spain) lies in areas formerly or currently designated as agricultural land. Russian Forest © Tatiana Khakimulina/Greenpeace A view of the forest in Russia © Tatiana Khakimulina/Greenpeace Part of these are old forests, which remained on farm lands and were unaccounted for after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the rest are new forests which have (...)