News & publications

UN expert: Climate change threatens democracy and human rights

The report released today by Philip Alston, UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, states that climate change could push more than 120 million more people into poverty by 2030 and undo the last 50 years of global fight against extreme poverty. The report underlines that the poorest

Read More »

EU ministers must clear the way for zero-carbon societies

MEDIA ADVISORY Today, EU ministers meeting at an Energy Council and a General Affairs Council will discuss respectively the priorities for the future energy infrastructure and for the future EU Cohesion Policy funding for climate action in the regions.According to the current state of play of negotiations, EU Member States,

Read More »

Climate crisis: Extreme heat waves hit Europe

Long-predicted impacts of climate change are wreaking havoc in Europe. An extreme heatwave is expected to affect millions of people in large parts of west-central Europe. In recent months, Eastern Europeans have been hit by heat waves and droughts; citizens in the UK, France, Germany and Italy suffered from floods

Read More »

Briefing: the battle over the EU’s climate ambition

This briefing shows that since the beginning of 2018, 22 EU Member States in total have signed on numerous statements calling for increasing efforts to tackle the climate crisis. Only six Member States: Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Poland, Romania and Slovakia have decided not to join any of the declarations in

Read More »

Just Transition or Just Talk?

New report by Climate Action Network (CAN) Europe and Sandbag reveals Member States are receiving EU energy transition support but not committing to phase-out coal. The draft National Energy and Climate Plans (NECPs) of 21 EU Member States which still use coal for electricity generation show that only eight are committed

Read More »

Fragmented Parliament needs unity to tackle climate emergency

As a result of the European elections concluded yesterday, the two traditional major parties of the social democrats and conservatives will no longer have a majority in the European Parliament. However, given the large support from voters for parties that have put climate action forward as a priority, there is

Read More »

Letter to EU ministers on climate and environmental action in development funding

Ahead of Foreign Affairs Council on 16 May, Climate Action Network (CAN) Europe, Oxfam EU, ACT Alliance EU, Conservation International and Wetlands International write to EU ministers to highlight how the Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument (NDICI) can support developing countries to scale up climate and environmental action and support biodiversity, fostering sustainable

Read More »

Cost of Coal in Turkey

Behind the notion of “externalities”, the often overlooked, real costs of coal power production are paid with human life, social, economic and cultural assets, ecosystem destruction and climate change. With its coal production facilities and three coal-fired power plants, the province of Muğla in Turkey has become an open-air laboratory

Read More »

UK understands that “the house is on fire”

Today, the UK Parliament voted to declare a “climate emergency” and became the first in Europe to clearly underline the urgency to address climate change. The vote in the House of Commons came as an answer to wide-spread citizen mobilisations in the UK which urged decision makers to step up climate

Read More »

Ministers debate increase of EU budget for climate action

Today EU ministers exchanged views on the climate aspects of the next EU budget after 2020 at a General Affairs Council. Most Member States agreed to the proposal of the European Commission that 25% of it will have to serve climate action. Few progressive voices call for a more ambitious

Read More »

Unique coalition calls upon EU to ramp up climate action

“We believe it is high time for European leaders to rise up to the challenge of climate action. We need Europe to transition to a sustainable society and economy as soon as possible.” This is the message from a unique gathering of businesses, investor groups, local and regional authorities, trade

Read More »

MEPs boost climate action support to developing countries

Today members of the European Parliament’s Foreign Affairs and Development Committees brought the EU’s future external investments in closer alignment with Paris Agreement goals. They improved on the European Commission’s proposal by agreeing to increase the climate and environment spending target and to exclude fossil fuels from EU funding going

Read More »

MEPs call for stepping up EU climate action

In today’s vote on the resolution on the EU’s long-term climate strategy, the European Parliament’s Environment Committee called for increasing the EU’s 2030 climate target to 55 percent emission cuts compared to 1990 levels, and achieving net zero emissions as early as possible and by 2050 at the latest.

Read More »

European Parliament greenlights clean cohesion policy

Today the members of the European Parliament adopted the Common Provisions Regulation, which sets the principles and common rules on how Cohesion Policy funding should be spent from 2021 to 2027. Civil society groups CEE Bankwatch Network and Climate Action Network (CAN) Europe welcome the agreed climate-friendly provisions, including the

Read More »

Future EU funds for the regions set to become climate-proof

Today the European Parliament’s Committee on Regional Development (REGI) adopted the so-called Common Provisions Regulation, which sets the conditions and principles governing the funding for Cohesion Policy from 2021 to 2027. NGO groups CEE Bankwatch Network and Climate Action Network (CAN) Europe welcome the regulation, which exceeds the European Commission’s

Read More »

Ireland’s Climate Case hearing starts this week

On Tuesday, 22 January, Climate Case Ireland’s legal case hearing starts in the national High Court. The legal case, initiated by the Friends of Irish Environment, argues that the Government’s 2017 National Mitigation Plan is in violation of Ireland’s Climate Act 2015, the Constitution and human rights obligations and also

Read More »

Future EU investment package falls short of climate ambition

Today the European Parliament took a disappointing stance on climate when voting to approve the establishment of InvestEU, the EU’s financing tool to attract private investments – say NGO groups CEE Bankwatch Network, Climate Action Network (CAN) Europe, WWF European Policy Office, and Counter Balance. The approved investment package keeps

Read More »

Letter to REGI Committee on sustainable cohesion policy funding

On 22 January 2019 and in February the REGI Committee will vote on the Common Provisions Regulation (CPR) and on the European Regional Development Fund / Cohesion Fund Regulation (ERDF/CF) respectively. These two pieces of legislation will determine the shape and direction of Cohesion Policy post-2020.

Read More »

COP24 outcome misses urgency of climate breakdown

As the COP24 climate summit comes to an end, it is clear that governments have failed to adequately respond to the catastrophic impacts of climate change that were highlighted in the landmark IPCC report on 1.5°C. Based on a now widely operational Paris Agreement the next two years need to

Read More »

EU joins a call for greater ambition at COP24

Today at the COP24 climate summit in Katowice, Poland a coalition of countries, including the EU, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom, committed to increase their climate targets by 2020. The commitment is a response to the findings of the landmark IPCC 1.5°C report.

Read More »

CCPI: European countries fail to take adequate climate action

The Climate Change Performance Index 2019 (CCPI), published today at the climate summit COP24 by Germanwatch, the NewClimate Institute and Climate Action Network (CAN) shows that three years after the adoption of the Paris Agreement, none of the 56 evaluated countries nor the EU are doing enough to achieve the

Read More »

Courts are increasingly forcing emissions cuts

At the end of a year that has seen an increase in climate-related litigation cases globally, plaintiffs, lawyers and campaigners representing six cases made clear at the UN climate talks in Katowice today that governments can no longer escape from their responsibility to protect the citizens from runaway climate change. In

Read More »

Poland wins Fossil of the Day Award at COP24

The host of this year’s UN climate summit COP24, Poland won the shameful Fossil of the Day Award from Climate Action Network International today. The dubious award was handed down to Poland for promoting coal interests and turning a blind eye to the need to ramp up climate pledges by

Read More »

COP24: first deadline for the Paris Agreement

Success requires EU leadership On 2 December, government leaders will gather in Katowice, Poland, for the COP24 climate summit, where all countries of the world, including all EU Member States, need to commit to adopting higher 2030 climate targets by 2020; agree on the Paris rulebook, which will govern how

Read More »

European Commission takes a step forward on climate change

The proposal to upgrade the EU’s long-term target to net zero emissions by 2050 included in the draft Long-Term EU Climate Strategy released by the European Commission today is an important step forward, but it is likely not enough to achieve the Paris Agreement’s goal to limit global temperature rise

Read More »

Polish short-sighted 2040 energy plan must be fixed

The Polish Ministry of Energy presented today its draft national energy policy 2040, whose orientation obviously stands in the way of the Paris Agreement as well as EU’s energy targets by 2030. It also turns a blind eye on the ever decreasing costs of renewable technologies, wind power in particular.

Read More »

Briefing: EU Long Term Strategy and the Paris Agreement

This briefing concerns the draft EU Long-Term Strategy. It explains that while setting a net zero by 2050 target would be a clear improvement as compared to the current roadmap, it would likely not be sufficient to meet the EU’s fair share of efforts to keep temperature rise below 1.5°C.

Read More »

Awards rally cry for climate-friendly EU budget

Shifting financial flows is crucial to global efforts to combat climate change. The European Commission claims that its proposals for the post-2020 EU budget are in line with the Paris Agreement. However, support for fossil fuels remains in the pipeline of future budget negotiations, as revealed today in the ‘EU

Read More »
FILTERS
DATE RANGE
date-filter
WORK AREAS
work areas
TYPE
type

CAN Europe Headquarters
Mundo B
Rue d’Edimbourg 26
1050, Brussels
Belgium

Tel: +32 (0) 28944670

CAN Europe empowers civil society organisations to influence the design and development of effective climate change policy in Europe, both in the European Union as well as in its Member States and in European countries outside the EU.

© Copyrights 2022. All Rights Reserved.