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The article explores the possibility that the precautionary principle may be scrapped from the European Union's (EU) free trade agreements. Topics covered included the legal and regulatory approaches to environmental policymaking which helped the formation of the precautionary principle as a guideline in environmental decision making and the reasons the Innovation Principle is much favored in the U.S. and why it is under intense scrutiny in the EU.

The article discusses climate change policymaking in the European Union (EU) and the lack of direction that came from the United Nations conference on climate change held in Copenhagen, Denmark in December 2009. The article discusses EU objectives for the Copenhagen meeting, EU actions taken at the meeting, the future of international cooperation on climate change, and influences that the Copenhagen meeting will have on the internal climate policies of the EU. Commentary is provided on the stance that the EU will take in future international climate change negotiations.

The article discusses the report "Sustaining Europe for a Long Way Ahead: Making Long-Term Sustainable Development Policies Work," by the Network of European Environmental and Sustainable Development Advisory Councils (EEAC) during its annual meeting in October 2008. The statement's aim is to evaluate how well various aspects of societies and economies plan, adapt, think, and assess actions for sustainable projects. Topics include a definition of sustainable development, as defined by the EEAC, the relationship between governance, social justice, and budgets in promoting sustainability in European Union (EU) countries, and the availability of markets that offer long-term sustainability for humanity. Also discussed is the role culture, demography, and localism play in sustainability.

The authors discuss the European Union (EU) rules about the disposal of electronic and electrical products. Widely available products such as cell phones, vacuum cleaners, stoves, and computers pose risks to both humans and the ecology if improperly discarded. The products, also known as e-waste, have been targeted by the EU in an effort to reverse their impact. The EU's decision also impacts such countries as the U.S., China, and Japan because of the manufacturers in those countries rely on exports. The three policy developments cover waste electrical and electronic equipment, restrictions on substances in electrical and electronic equipment (both in force as of 2003), and the regulation on the registration, evaluation, and authorization of chemicals used in manufacturing is effective 2007. INSETS: ENVIRONMENTAL AND HUMAN HEALTH THREATS FROM HAZARDOUS SUBSTANCES;THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE WEEE DIRECTIVE.

Discusses how Europe will launch an updated emissions trading program for greenhouse gases in 2005 which is much larger and more complex than the U.S. effort. Role of market-based policies in environmental regulation and in the formation of future European and international climate change policies; Consideration of the plans for the European Union Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) to address global climate change implement a more consistent trading program among nations; Innovations regarding provisions that provide flexibility in monitoring and compliance; Difficulty associated with the preparation and review of National Allocation Plans; Use of auctions in the distribution of tradable emissions allowances in the U.S. INSETS: EUROPEAN UNION TERMINOLOGY;KEY FEATURES OF EU ETS;EFFECTIVE EMISSIONS TRADING PROGRAMS: A VIEW FROM THE ECONOMICS;SUMMARY OF U.S. TRADING PROGRAMS

The article reports on the various branches of the European Union (EU) that control procedures for developing environmental policy and the various responsibilities of each branch. Under the 1992 Maastricht Treaty, the EU was divided into three main areas known as pillars. The first pillar is most responsible for environmental policy. The European Commission is the executive body of the EU and proposes new legislation in addition to implementing EU policy and initiating legal recourse against member countries in the event of non-compliance. The European Parliament has 732 representatives from all the member countries based on population figures. The Council of Ministers has representatives from all member states and together with the Parliament reaches a co-decision on environmental issues.

This commentary discusses the European Union's Emissions Trading system. In their very instructive and useful overview of the European Union's Emissions Trading System (EU ETS), "Greenhouse Gas Trading in Europe: The New Grand Policy Experiment," Joseph A. Kruger and William A. Pizer note that implementation of the system has been an impressively rapid process. They indicate that a main factor for understanding the character and speed of this process is the constructive use of lessons from U.S. trading programs by EU decisionmakers. The EU's high-speed decision-making process in constructing the emissions trading system can basically be understood and explained by a combination and interaction of three perspectives. First, the EU system was more ripe and ready for emissions trading when the process started in 1998 than may be readily apparent. Second, the European Commission (the Commission), the formal EU agenda-setter, played an extraordinarily strong entrepreneurial role throughout the development of the system, which sped up the process. Third, there is the perspective of the lessons learned from the U.S. emissions trading experience, as emphasized by Kruger and Pizer.

Even with new policies to promote cleaner energy, the European Union (EU) will not be able to meet its Kyoto Protocol targets for reducing emissions of carbon dioxide (CO[2]), according to the International Energy Agency's (IEA) chief economist, Fatih Birol. IEA forecasts indicate that the EU could boost shares of renewable power such as wind and solar energy to 30 percent of overall electricity generation by 2030, but emissions would not be sufficiently reduced to meet climate change targets. Under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, the EU must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, of which CO[2] is the most important-by 8 percent of 1990 levels by 2012. IEA estimates that renewable energy policies would cut emissions by only 4.9 percent by 2010 and 19 percent by 2030, which still is an overall rise due to increased demand for transportation and the long life span of traditional electricity plants.

The author reflects upon the 2006 environmental policies regarding the disposal and recycling of electronic and electrical waste in the European Union (EU). While the new rules are innovative in their requirements that essentially ban the dumping of electronics and electrical waste in landfills, the implementation and oversight have been left to the separate countries that make up the EU with no funding for the program. Meanwhile, it is hoped manufacturers embrace the new rules as an opportunity to redesign consumer goods to speed later recycling efforts.