The unresolved issue: living next to a polluted site
Many places in Europe have been contaminated by companies which, despite sometimes having been “ordered” to carry out remediation, fail to compensate residents for the damage caused to t...
Norway will continue to drill in the Arctic, with or without Europe?
Profiting from the melting Arctic ice by extracting oil and gas from one of its most biodiverse seas: this is the fossil fuel development plan the Norwegian government has in mind for the Barents Se...
State of the Union: von der Leyen focuses on independence, competitiveness and the climate
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”: Ursula von der Leyen quoted Dickens’s words describing the period of the French Revolution at the opening of her State of the...
Construction and the climate crisis: Europe must build for a different climate
For decades, preserving heat to protect people from the cold has been the priority for much of the European construction industry. Today, however, architecture faces a different challenge, one incre...
CBAM: the European Parliament stalls on the emergency clause
Yesterday, 15 September, the European Parliament voted on the revision of the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), the EU system that taxes the emissions contained in certain goods imported fr...
Climate and air quality, UNEP: every dollar invested generates 15 in benefits
Climate change and air pollution are closely interconnected phenomena, yet they are almost always analysed separately. On the International Day of Clean Air for blue skies, on 7 September 2026, the ...
Getting To the Moon is Not Enough: We Have To Stay There
Giuseppe Sala teaches at the Department of Aerospace Science and Technology at the Politecnico di Milano and chairs the Technical-Scientific Committee of BEX – Beyond Exploration, the spa...
August 2026 was the hottest month ever recorded globally
The warning signs were clear to anyone paying attention, given the numerous consecutive heatwaves, but Copernicus data have now confirmed it: August 2026 has entered the climate record books as the ...
The ETS review and carbon credits: how many tonnes, how many credits?
This article is part of the thematic channel The Carbon Observer: subscribe to the newsletter The EU's renewed opening to international carbon credits has moved, within four months, from ...
Europe’s 250 Million-Tonne CDR Market Will Not Be for Everyone
This article is part of the thematic channel The Carbon Observer: subscribe to the newsletter The European Commission has proposed auctioning 250 million additional EU Emissions Trad...
International credits in the ETS: the Commission moves forward, the Parliament is divided
This article is part of the thematic channel The Carbon Observer: subscribe to the newsletter On 17 July 2026, the European Commission issued a legislative proposal to overhaul the EU ETS...
Warm homes, lower bills, stronger EU: the power of citizen-led energy networks
How can we all enjoy comfortable temperatures in our homes at a fair, affordable price? Locally produced renewable heating and cooling networks fight energy poverty, increase comfort, make our citie...
Too Hot to Cope: Why Cooling Must Become Europe’s Next Social Right
Marine Cornelis is Digital Ambassador of the European Sustainable Energy Week (EUSEW), Executive Director and founder of Next Energy Consumer, an organisation dedicated to putting citizens at the he...
Can Ghana save its forests without abandoning cocoa farmers?
“We earn around $200 [€175, ed] a month, and every expense has to come out of that,” says Francis Tenor, president of the Boase Sibi cocoa cooperative in Ghana’s Eastern ...
Europe moves to secure gallium supply as METLEN signs US deal
On July 29, METLEN Energy & Metals announced a long-term deal to supply approximately 25% of the annual gallium output expected from its planned production facility in Greece. The agreement was ...
Circularity in models for assessing the construction sector’s emissions impacts
The starting point, as Pierluigi Zerbino explained to an audience of businesses and academics, is disarmingly simple: “We asked ourselves: can the circular economy help to decarbonise the cons...
ETS reform: the EU is going along with the most polluting industries
On Friday 17 July, the European Commission presented its proposal to revise the Emissions Trading System (ETS), the EU’s carbon market, which since 2005 has helped halve emissions from th...
Critical raw materials, Luca Meini: “It’s urgent to move from strategy to execution”
In just a few years, critical raw materials (CRMs) have become the true bottleneck for Europe’s green and digital transition. Lithium, cobalt, rare earths, gallium, germanium – without t...
Underused power plants, high costs: EU pays the price for its dependence on gas
The Hormuz Strait energy crisis has reignited the debate over fossil fuel subsidies: should governments pitch in to limit the cost of fuel – and risk reinforcing their countries’ depende...
EurEau presents the state-of-the-art of european water services in 2026
This article is part of the thematic channel The Water Observer: subscribe to our newsletter and receive exclusive contents from the world of water One year after the presentation of the Europ...