France

Europe to go beyond its Kyoto Protocol goals

The European Union 15 first members already achieved their Kyoto Protocol goals and will even go beyond. Meanwhile, the 27 members already cut their emissions by 13.6 percent. These excellent results date of 2007. With the economic recession of the past months, the industrial activity have drastically decreased and thus the emissions and thus slashed […]

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The Alps are endangered by climate change

To the latest report of the European Environment Agency, climate change “poses a grave threat” to the snows of the Alps, and thus will decrease the amounts of water received by many rivers like the Danube, Rhine, Po and Rhone. At the center of Europe the Alps – like the Himalayas are for Asia –

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France seeks alternatives to GDP

Gross Domestic Product, also know as GDP, is not a sustainable indicator. Indeed it only focuses on the economy and makes no mention of societies and environment. So we need alternatives that would take that into account. This is even more urgent with the current economic downturn. Indeed, even if things are slowly and difficultly

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My first night of astronomy observation

I spent my first night of astronomy observation this weekend, as a part of the Nuit des Etoiles, which takes place every year in July in France. Organized by the French Astronomy Association, many evenings are organized. One of the them was taking place not far from home, I had the pleasure to meet there

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Renewable energies are progressing in Europe

EurObserv’ER published its eighth report on the state of renewable energies in Europe. Both in French and English, it demonstrates the sector is vibrant and is just taking off. As there are too many renewable energy solutions to be handled in a single article, I will only present you here the findings of the report

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France studying carbon tax introduction

I have the pleasure to announce you that my second article for CleanTechies have been published. After writing about the wind energy sector in France, this one is about the future carbon tax. Here is a short extract: ” France is currently thinking of enacting a carbon tax to increase climate change mitigation efforts. If

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4,000 MW of wind power in France

I would like to announce that my first article at CleanTechies has been published today. This is both a huge pleasure and a honor to write for such a blog. Here is an extract: According to an article [Fr] from the AFP, the installed wind power capacity in France reached 4,000 MW. In line with

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The Grenelle could create up to 600,000 jobs

Les Echos [Fr], the French leading financial newspaper brought my attention to a study published by the Boston Consulting Group stating that the Grenelle de l’environnement could create up to 600,000 jobs in France in the very next years. The majority of the job creations are due to occur in the building sector as up

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French carbon tax delayed to 2011

To the AFP:  ” The French government on Wednesday kickstarted plans for a so-called carbon tax on energy-hungry products, to be rolled out by 2011 as part of France’s efforts to slash global warming emissions. “ (…) ”  President Nicolas Sarkozy’s government has said it hopes to shift part of French taxes from labour towards

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Solar PV to provide 300 MW to France by 2011

Last week Jean-Louis Borloo, the French energy and environment Minister, launched a plan that will quadruple the amount of electricity provided by solar photovoltaïc in order to reach 300 MW by 2011. This is great news as investing 1.5 billion euros ($2 billion) in solar PV is the right move for France to enable local

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