June 25 Richard Leese,  leader of Manchester City Council, announces that there may, after all, be a city-wide referendum on the Transport Innovation Fund bid (reported last MCFly), if all councils accept it as binding.  At least one has said it will not.

June 24 Canatxx, a privately owned US company, is bidding again to build the UK's largest onshore gas storage facility in salt caverns near Fleetwood, on the Lancashire coast. BERR supports it, DCLG doesn't.

June 26 local man develops "green" bike - is an almost disposable bike that green? see manchester evening news

June 30 Seven organisations won awards at the North West Business Environment Awards. The top award went to Joe Dwek, enviromental campaigner and chairman of the Worthington Group.

Jun 30  Energy Minister Malcolm Wicks said: “The age of cheap power is over - so there is an urgent need for more innovation in the power industry, ... as he opened the Energy Innovation Centre at Capenhurst, near Chester – a hothouse for new energy businesses and technologies, which is expected to create 18 new companies and 60 jobs. 

July 2  The Manchester Evening News reports that the council is looking into an underground carpark next to the Town Hall. 

July 3 Gordon Brown acknowledged the Torr Weir power station in New Mills. It is a community-run hydroelectric power plant that will have a grand opening in September.

July 5 Manchester United will use electric vans to remove injured players from the field, rather than stretcher-bearers. (MEN page 8)

July 6 Al-Markaz al-Najmi, an environmentally-friendly mosque in Levenshulme, was officially opened

National

The National Union of Students is looking for universities and colleges to get involved in a scheme to grow food on campus. If you are interested in this for your area, please contact the NUS as soon as possible, as in September they will be submit funding bids to the Big Lottery fung Changing Spaces Programme (www.localfoodgrants.org)

June 23 Environmentalists tell ministers not to “wriggle” out of renewable energy targets imposed by Europe through counting overseas schemes, and incomplete projects.

June 24 Paul McCartney proposes "meat-free Mondays" to cut carbon emissions

June 24 The Confederation of British Industry (the union of big business) said that businesses should keep improving their environmental performance, in spite of the economic slowdown. “Stuff happens in politics to distract the focus of attention, but we know that the scale of this challenge must make it a business priority for the next 30 years.”

June 25 Sir Michael Pitt, tasked with reviewing Britain's flood defences, says they are inadequate to deal with inundations of the scale seen in 2007. The Environment Agency, the Met Office, the Highways Agency and local authorities should collaborate more closely.

June 25 Lord Stern launches a new carbon credit rating agency today. It will be the first to score carbon credits in a similar way to the ratings used for debt. It will be run by the IdeaCarbon group

June 26th Lord Stern releases report signalling that the cost of tackling climate change has doubled since his original landmark report. He now says that 2% GDP is needed to tackle the problem of climate change, and that inaction would mean far greater economic damage.

June 28 A Financial Times investigation suggests that ministers are going to bypass their own legislation about planning in order to approve new “eco-towns”. At least 11 of the 15 short-listed have disregarded the findings of the government's own process for determining regions' housing needs.

June 26 Government's "Renewable Energy" proposals launched

June 27 Gordon Brown, in setting out a the government's renewable energy strategy declared “Building a low-carbon economy is not just something to do with climate change. It is not just an energy security issue. It is not just part of economic policy. It is all of these things and more. It is nothing less than the basis of our future prosperity.”

June 27 Household gas bills could rise by up to 37% and electricity costs by 13% as the government lines up consumers to pay for a green revolution that would move Britain from oil dependence to a low carbon economy. A renewable energy strategy outlined by ministers yesterday signalled that energy bills could soar by hundreds of pounds, and could push over 2 million extra people into fuel poverty.

June 29 Fresh doubts have been raised over plans for new coal-fired power plants after the environment regulator said it expects that those not fitted with expensive carbon capture and storage (CCS) equipment in future will have to close.

June 30 An Ernst andYoung report "Costing the Earth" predicted that energy bills could climb another 20% "to meet European green targets"

July 1 Prince Charles private income rose, but his carbon footprint shrank thanks to switching to a 'green' electricity supplier and travel reductions.

July 3  BERR boss John Jutton claimed Britain cannot wait for new "clean coal" technology, and shoultd start building them now, regardless. (FT)

July 3  The government is expected to axe plans for a 2p rise in fuel duty after Downing Street today confirmed that an announcement would be made on the issue "within the next few weeks".

July 3 Britain's greenhouse gas emissions are higher than official figures suggest, the government has admitted. The environment department Defra says UK emissions are higher than previously stated if carbon pollution linked to imported goods is included. Official figures only count direct emissions within national boundaries, so miss out the carbon cost of goods manufactured elsewhere. A report this week from several international groups says carbon dioxide emissions associated with UK consumption grew 18% between 1992 and 2004, once these imports are accounted for. Official figures show UK CO2 pollution falling 5% over that period

July 3 A "Flash Mob" of protestors did some paperplane throwing outside Department forTransport in protest  at expansion of Heathrow Airport. 

July 3  Scottish Coal did a deal with Scottish Power for £700m of coal over the next 5 years. 

International

 June 17 - G8 rich nations won't set a target for cutting CO2 emissions by 2020 or 2030 when their leaders meet next month, Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda said on Tuesday

June 23  Gordon Brown attended an extraordinary meeting in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, to ask for more oil to be pumped out of the ground. 

June 24 Siemens, the giant European engineering firm, claimed it had made nearly twice as much money from its “environmentally friendly” products as GE had with its Ecoimagination range

June 24 James Hansen, one of the world’s leading climate scientists, told the House Select Committee On Energy Independence And Global Warming that he is 99-percent certain that the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere has already risen beyond the safe level. Hansen, who was one of the first to tell the U.S. Congress about global warming 20 years ago, said a carbon tax is the most efficient way to curb emissions that cause global warming.
Likening chief executive officers of energy companies to those of cigarette companies who once publicly denied the health hazards of smoking knowing the possible consequences, Hansen said, “We have to level with the public that there has to be a price on carbon emissions. That is the only way we are going to begin to move toward a carbon free economy.” Hansen went on to say: “CEOs of fossil energy companies know what they are doing and are aware of long-term consequences of continued business as usual. In my opinion, these CEOs should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature.”

June 24 Republican candidate John McCain has proposed a $300m prize to encourage the development of more energy efficient cars. 

June 26 The International Air Transport Association took out a full-page ad in the FT to protest an EU plan to bring aviation into the EU Emissions Trading Scheme

June 26-9 Tallberg Forum in Sweden, launch of "<350" an organisation advocating a target of 350 parts per million of C02 in the atmosphere, lower than today's level.

June 27 Virgin Group's first green investment fund raises $199m, including money from Wolverhampton City Council and Calpers (the Californian pensions fund)

June 27 Proctor & Gamble are moving factories closer to consumers, because oil prices are making transport much more expensive.

June 28 Tony “45 minutes” Blair pleads for world leaders to avoid becoming “fixated on precise targets” but instead concentrate on practical short-term steps towards halving emissions by 2050. Just like he did.

June 30 The "Climate Strategies" thinktank urged that knee-jerk bids to tackle prices of fuel should not distract G8 leaders from drawing up a global deal on climate change.

June 30  Work on a coal-fired power plant in Georgia was halted when Fulton County Judge Thelma Wyatt Cummings  ruled that the plant's builders must first obtain a permit from state regulators that limits the amount of carbon dioxide emissions. AP Press

July 1 The Tasmanian Government's introduces new climate change legislation that doesn't include interim targets to reduce the state's greenhouse gas emissions. The Bill, based on South Australian legislation, targets a 60 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, based on 1990 levels.

July 3  Global investment in "green" energy surged ahead in 2007 and has continued to grow this year despite turmoil in financial markets, a report says. Spending on green power last year hit $148bn (£75bn), up 60% from 2006, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) said.  Rising oil prices, concerns over energy security, climate change worries and growing government support were behind the rise, it said.

July 4  A Japanese negotiatior stated that the 1990 baseline for emissions had been foisted on the world by the Europeans, primarily the UK, to give them an easier target to reach.

July 4  Air France is holding talks with Veolia Transport about high-speed train links replacing some of its short haul flights. (FT)

July 5 Ross Garnaut, Australia's answer to Nicholas Stern, has recommended the rapid and wide introduction of carbon emission trading in Australia, in his 600-page report.

Scary Science

June 27  Arctic may well be ice free this summer

June 27 A study published in Science reports that plants are climbing to higher ground at an average rate of 29m per decade. There are fears global warming will disrupt ecological networks of interdependent species.  (Probably do a Triffid angle here!!)

July 1 Using satellite images to reveal changes in forest cover between 1972 and 2002…Papua New Guinea (PNG) lost more than 5 million hectares of forest over the past three decades…Worse, deforestation rates may be accelerating, with the pace of forest clearing reaching 362,000 hectares (895,000 acres) per year in 2001. The study warns that at current rates 53 percent of the country’s forests could be lost or seriously degraded by 2021. www.mongabay.com 

July 2  Politicians may have got the science on climate change wrong and don't realise how bad the situation is, a new report says. The report, by the Australian National University's centre for climate law and policy, says policy-makers have not understood how the carbon cycle works.

Recent research shows climate change could be feeding on itself, and therefore advancing at a faster rate than first thought. These climate cycle "feedbacks" - where global warming interferes with carbon storage sinks - must be taken into account, the report says. "Participants in policy processes often rely on data that do not fully account for these (climate) feedbacks," said the report, which was co-authored by a Greens staffer.

July 3  A study by Professor Michael Prather of University of California (Irvine) has looked at the production of nitrogen trifluorene, a greenhouse gas 17,000 times more powerful than carbon dioxide. It is used in the production of flat screen televisions, and its production is booming. No-one is measuring how much of it reaches the atmosphere.

The Apocalypso Beat

June 25 "We all want to help the planet but they [Asda] should take in to account that people cannot carry ridiculously heavy bags, especially if they also have children with them" letter in MEN 25th June

May/June 'I Want One of Those' Catalogue launches fake environmentally-friendly novelty goods, including the Global Warming Mug- as it heats up, you see the worlds coastline slowly dissapear, and the Desktop Solar Wind Turbine- a mini, plastic tubine that serves no purpose, powered by light. They write, "It is becoming quite obvious to us all that green is the new black, so here are the ideal toys for the trend-setting environmentalist. Global warming may not be a laughing matter, but there is nothing wrong with smiling in the face of adversity".  
 

2 July Easy Jet gets its wrist slapped by the Advertising Standards Authority for having released an series of newspaper adverts claiming its planes emitted  22%  than other airlines. 
 

3 July  The rising demand for flat-screen televisions could have a greater impact on global warming than the world's largest coal-fired power stations, a leading environmental scientist warned yesterday.  Manufacturers use a greenhouse gas called nitrogen trifluoride to make the televisions, and as the sets have become more popular, annual production of the gas has risen to about 4,000 tonnes. As a driver of global warming, nitrogen trifluoride is 17,000 times more potent than carbon dioxide, yet no one knows how much of it is being released into the atmosphere by the industry, said Michael Prather, director of the environment institute at the University of California, Irvine.