EU Targets Gas Guzzlers

Gas-guzzling SUVs or sports cars as well as people carriers could be “priced off the road within five years”, according to the Daily Telegraph after a crackdown on carbon emissions to be announced by the European Commission. The average new car in 2012 will have to emit no more than 120 grams of carbon per … Read More

Chrysler Questions Climate Change

“Green” cars may all be the rage at the Detroit motor show, but Chrysler’s chief economist Van Jolissaint has launched a fierce attack on “quasi-hysterical Europeans” and their “Chicken Little” attitudes to climate change. Mr Jolissaint was speaking at a private breakfast where the chief economists of the “Big Three” US car firms presented their … Read More

US Car Giants Go “Green”

Ford and General Motors, the two embattled giants of the US car industry, Ford and General Motors have both unveiled plans for electric cars to try to maintain their position in an increasingly competitive market. GM, the world’s biggest car maker, unveiled the Chevrolet Volt yesterday at the glitzy Detroit Motor Show, where fuel efficiency … Read More

Oil Outlook “Frightening”

Happy New Year 2. The Seattle Times reports gloomily: “Food shortages, cars abandoned, another depression. It’s the stuff of nightmares — and the type of future an eclectic group of engineers, computer experts and others in Seattle believe could await us”. “Members of Seattle Peak Oil Awareness expect world production of oil and gasoline to … Read More

Shell Evacuates Staff From Nigeria

Oil giant Shell has begun evacuating the dependents of hundreds of expatriate staff from the Niger Delta after local militants planted a car bomb in a residential compound that damaged cars, although no one was injured. The pullout involves some 400 foreign family members from Port Harcourt, Warri and Bonny Island. Staff will stay put … Read More

Council Calls for Energy Security

A group of CEOs and retired military officers, called the Energy Security Leadership Council, has issued a report urging tougher vehicle fuel-efficiency standards, wider access to offshore petroleum, greater incentives for biofuel development and increased production of flex-fuel cars.

Chelsea Tractors in Decline

Gas-guzzling “Chelsea Tractors” or SUVs have suffered a sudden decline in sales after a succession of threatened tax rises, The Times reports today. Existing owners of 4x4s are facing substantial losses because the second-hand value of the vehicles has also dropped significantly. Sales of new 4x4s fell by more than 15 per cent last month … Read More

Questioning the Judges’ Judgement

OK – I’m not a lawyer and who am I to question the judgement of the top judges in the US, especially not the Supreme Court. Having said that I certainly feel that they must be living in a bubble. Maybe they don’t live in the real world. Where have they been these last few … Read More

Bush’s Day in Court Over Climate

It’s an old political cliché that we could be witnessing history in the making, but today in the Supreme Court in Washington that might just happen. We might just be witnessing the beginning of the end of the Bush Administration’s flawed and belligerent approach to climate change.

EU’s Secret Rethink on Carbon Emissions

The European Commission is arguing that Europe should set a new, unilateral, target for cutting CO2 emissions, agree legally binding plans to boost renewable energy and bring cars into its carbon trading scheme. The secret blueprint, drawn up by the Commission’s vice-president, Gunther Verheugen, marks a significant shift in thinking as officials in Brussels seek … Read More