Friends of the Earth Europe

European politicians laid foundations for a resource efficient Europe today, with wide political support shown for the need to measure Europe's resource use. This is a crucial first step towards reducing Europe's resource use, according to Friends of the Earth Europe, but the European Commission must follow suit in order for Europe to gain the benefits greater resource efficiency brings.

Palm oil corporations Wilmar International and BIDICO, along with the Ugandan Government and the World Bank, have funded huge palm oil expansion on islands off the coast of Lake Victoria.

A quarter of the islands have already been planted with oil palm. Most of this land belonged to local communities and indigenous peoples.

Brussels/Berlin/London, February 2, 2012 – Motorists across Europe are set to pay an additional €18 billion a year for petrol and diesel as a result of EU biofuel targets that have been shown not to reduce emissions, says new research published today [1].

New figures, commissioned by Friends of the Earth Europe and ActionAid [2], show that the planned increase in biofuels use could cost European consumers an extra €94 to €126 billion between now and 2020. This despite evidence that biofuels will actually make climate change worse and increase global hunger [3].

As Denmark prepares to take over the presidency of the European Union in January for the first half of 2012, Friends of the Earth Europe has written a letter to the Danish Presidency calling on it to contribute to a more environmentally-friendly and sustainable future, for the people of Europe and other continents.

"The current global economic, financial, environmental and social crises present us with a challenge of historic proportions. Only an urgent, wide ranging and far reaching response can deal with this situation," the letter states.