Energy Efficiency Rankings In an unsurprising ranking by International Energy Efficiency Scorecard developed by ACEEE, US and Canada have bottom ranks in Energy Efficiency along with other climate change skeptics like Russia and Australia. The Europeans led by UK, Germany along with Japan get high rankings in Energy Efficiency. Note Canada has been amongst the […]

Europe which has been one of the greenest regions on earth in terms of promoting green energy and reducing carbon emissions is set to face a severe test. Europe is going to impose a Carbon Tax on Airlines flying into the region from 2012 . This has got the other major countries seeing red, with most of them planning retaliation. This Green Tax will add around $3 billion per year in terms of extra fees from airlines or around $6 per extra passenger. While airlines from USA and Canada approached the court, airlines from India and China are refusing to pay the tax outright. Indian airlines won’t supply their carbon data while China won’t pay the taxes . Note European Union is isolated in this fight against climate change . Though Carbon Trading is not a perfect system and open to abuses, at least it makes a pretense to fight global warming. On the other hand,these other countries have no plan or intention to fight climate change.

Airline Ticket Prices are set to go up as European Union implements its ETS Scheme on the Airline Industry from 2012.Note EU as a region has been one of the most active players in the climate change arena and has an active carbon emissions market.Though this market has encouraged fraud and profiteering by unscrupolous players making it a good target for the fossil fuel lobby,the principle to fight against global warming is a good one.Compare that to USA,Canada and Japan who have done nothing to fight climate change despite the wealth of these nations.Canada has been guilty of abandoning the Kyoto Plan after missing its previous target.It has faced no penalties as it is not legally enforceable.The country continues down the pollute as much as you can pushing oil extraction from tar sands which is much more dangerous to the environment than normal oil drilling.

CBI which is India’s leading investigate agency controlled by the government at the centre has been known to be a pawn in the ruling party hands.It selectively investigates cases against the opposition and the ruling alliance repeatedly messing up intentionally cases of graft against government ministers at the state and federal level.The Ruling Party has often used CBI as a powerful tool against both alliance parties as well as the opposition parties.This blantant manner of corruption had made the Supreme Court directly take the supervision of CBI in the 2G Telecom Scandal investigation which has thrown top corporate and politicians in jail.Now CBI has started acting tardily in the Adarsh Housing Scandal in which top Congress ministers in Maharashtra,bureaucrats,retired generals and admirals had conspired to usurp real estate land worth crores of ruppees.

USA has been one of the worst countries in the world in regards to climate change and global warming issues.While countries have pledged to cut down their emissions from 1990 under the Kyoto Protocol,USA has not only increased its GHG Emissions by 80% from 1990 but also failed to announce any target for 2020.President Obama […]

The Spanish Government faces multiple lawsuits over its Royal Decrees which cut the Feed in Tariff for Solar PV Installations Retroactively.These laws were passed in Dec 2010 as part of the comprehensive review of the Renewable Energy Subsidies by the government.While Wind Energy and Solar Thermal Subsidies were changed earlier,the controversy over the Solar PV subsidies had forced the government to delay the change to the last minute.These changes were strongly opposed by the Solar PV Industry Association ASIF which has earlier called the measure as “industry killing”.These cuts over the next 3 years would be done through a “backdoor approach” in which the subsidies would be restricted for a only a few hours for the Solar PV plants.