‘Tsunami’ Of Renewable Energy Projects Threatens Europe’s Last Wild Rivers

Ireland faces fines of €600m a year from the EU for failing to meet renewable energy targets and cutting carbon emissions by 2020. A report for the Dáil Public Accounts Committee, which calculated the potential fines within two years, said they will be a matter for the European Court of Justice to impose. —The Irish Independent, 30 April 2018

Plans to build about 3,000 hydropower plants in the Balkans in the next few years endanger Europe’s last wild rivers and some of the most important biodiversity hotspots on the continent, campaigners said on Saturday. Ulrich Eichelmann, head of the campaign group RiverWatch, said clean energy such as hydropower, could have negative effects on the environment. “Just because it doesn’t emit CO2 it doesn’t mean it’s good,” Eichelmann told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. —Reuters, 29 April 2018

Denmark may be open to financial incentives to buy electric cars after seeing a dramatic drop in sales of non-polluting vehicles, according to Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen. Danish sales of electric vehicles have fallen dramatically — from nearly 5,000 in 2015 to around 700 in 2017 — since Rasmussen’s center-right government phased out subsidies such as those offered in Norway and Germany. —Bloomberg, 29 April 2018

Germany, an ecological pioneer and model pupil in climate protection? That was probably never true. In the first global energy transition ranking, Germany is not even among the top ten in Europe. —Daniel Wetzel, Die Welt, 20 March 2018

Front-line negotiators from more than 190 nations will gather for climate talks in Bonn on Monday. They face a daunting task: bring the 2015 Paris Agreement to life. The rift between rich and developing countries that stymied climate talks for more than two decades before the 2015 accord put all nations on the same page has reemerged. —AFP, 28 April 2018