LONDON, March 15 (Reuters) – Global greenhouse gas
emissions could rise 50 percent by 2050 without more ambitious
climate policies, as fossil fuels continue to dominate the
energy mix, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and
Development (OECD) said on Thursday.

“Unless the global energy mix changes, fossil fuels will
supply about 85 percent of energy demand in 2050, implying a 50
percent increase in greenhouse gas emissions and worsening urban
air pollution,” the OECD said in its environment outlook to
2050.

BRUSSELS/LONDON (Reuters) – Big business will prove an unexpected ally of the European Commission in pushing for firm policy to cut carbon after existing 2020 targets expire, as companies draw up their own plans for a future of greener power.

Many business leaders, independent of official European Union policy, take the view that locking into fossil fuels creates the danger of stranded assets when a low-carbon grid looks more and more likely.

LONDON, March 12 (Reuters) – Drought could spread to
more regions of Britain if dry weather continues this spring,
the UK’s Environment Agency warned on Monday, prompting seven
water companies to impose water restrictions on their customers.

A large part of England is already in drought after
extremely low rainfall for two winters, which has affected much
of the southeast, including London, and East Anglia.

LONDON (Reuters) – The complete melt of the Greenland ice sheet could occur at lower global temperatures than previously thought, a study in the journal Nature Climate Change showed on Sunday, increasing the threat and severity of a rise in sea level.

Substantial melting of land ice could contribute to long-term sea level rise of several meters, potentially threatening the lives of millions of people.

LONDON (Reuters) – Ordinary people are not putting enough pressure on governments to deliver a legally binding deal on cutting greenhouse gas emissions, the U.N.’s climate chief said.

“There is not enough well up from the bottom up. I don’t see millions of citizens demanding climate action,” Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, said at a lecture on Friday.

LONDON, March 8 (Reuters) – A year after the Fukushima
nuclear accident most of the world continues running and
building nuclear power, but extra risk control measures imposed
in the wake of the disaster will increase the cost of operating
nuclear plants.

Japan’s reactor meltdowns at the Fukushima nuclear plant
triggered by a deadly earthquake and tsunami on March 11 last
year shook the nuclear world and raised a question mark over
whether atomic energy is safe.

LONDON, March 6 (Reuters) – Gregg Wallace, a judge of
the popular British television cooking competition Masterchef,
has gone back to his roots with a new 1970s-inspired restaurant
in Bermondsey, southeast London.

Born in neighbouring Peckham and a former Bermondsey
resident, Wallace opened “Gregg’s Table” last week in the
Bermondsey Square Hotel with a retro menu inspired by food from
the 1970s.

LONDON, March 5 (Reuters) – Water management company
Aqualia plans to launch a commercial-scale demonstration project
using waste water to cultivate algae for biofuel production,
which could fuel 400 vehicles, the firm said on Monday.

Spain’s Aqualia, owned by construction and services company
FCC, in collaboration with European partners, has
already started construction of algae culture ponds at a waste
water treatment plant in Chiclana, northern Spain, which should
be able to produce 500 litres of biodiesel a year and 1,500
cubic metres of biomethane.

LONDON (Reuters) – Could “green” be the new black? Perhaps only if you can imagine wearing stilettos made from pistachio nuts and coffee beans and clothes from orange peel, fungi and mould.

While the fashion pack are hitting the catwalks at Paris Fashion Week, students at London’s Kingston University have taken up the challenge of trying to lower the industry’s carbon footprint by using biodegradable materials to produce luxury clothes, shoes and accessories for home and car interiors.

BRUSSELS/LONDON, Feb 28 (Reuters) – European Union
politicians backed a proposal on Tuesday to allow the EU
Commission to intervene in the bloc’s emissions trading scheme
by withholding the supply of carbon permits in a bid to prop up
low prices.

The European Parliament’s industry committee passed an
amendment to the Energy Efficiency Directive that would let the
Commission take measures that “may include withholding of the
necessary amount of allowances” from the 2013-2020 phase of the
EU market.