European industry faces a difficult year, but for some companies there may be an exception: these are mainly suppliers and installers of solar systems.
Roughly a third of the world’s fertiliser exports pass through the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow chokepoint now blocked by Iran in response to being attacked. Within days of the latest escalation, fertiliser prices surged, with urea (a nitrogen-based fertiliser) jumping sharply across global markets.
In recent history, the El Niño phenomenon has in most cases brought exceptionally hot and wild weather. And 2026 is likely to be the same, especially its second half.
“Unfortunately, some governments are using this crisis and the rise in electricity prices to undermine climate policies,” Spain’s socialist prime minister Pedro Sanchéz said on arrival at an EU leaders summit in Brussels.
A blocking minority of member states is pushing to weaken the bloc’s carbon pricing mechanism — which requires industries to pay for their pollution.
Water-resource conflicts already happening in Spain, Ireland and the Netherlands will only worsen now that the EU Commission plans to triple data centre capacity in Europe over the next five to seven years. Little thought has been given to the oligopolistic cloud market and how it will evolve if the EU triples its data centre capacity.
As leaders of forest-based industries in Sweden, we have examined the EU Commission’s updated bioeconomy strategy — and would like to suggest a few improvements related to the role of wood.
Plastic products in the EU could soon be labelled “recycled” — even when they contain barely any recycled material. A new definition backed by most member states allows plastics with as little as 2.5 percent waste-derived content. Critics warn that the rule relies on accounting tricks that may mask fossil-based plastic production.
The EU’s key water law is under pressure amid intensified lobbying by the mining industry. DeSmog analysis shows sector meetings with EU officials tripled in the year before the European Commission pledged to “review and revise” the Water Framework Directive.
EU leaders want the carbon market reviewed by July at the latest, instead of the currently planned third-quarter timeline, a leaked draft of next week’s European Council conclusions shows.
The letter signed by 100 European companies and investors rebuffs the anti-emissions trading push from governments and the chemicals lobby — showing that not all European firms are aligned on weakening carbon pricing.
US president says greenhouse gases aren’t a threat anymore. The EU is also easing green rules to help businesses. Are European climate policies at risk?
How can we prevent climate policy from becoming an issue fuelling a new Kulturkampf and class struggles?