As previewed on Tuesday, the European parliament passed its resolution on climate change on Wednesday, calling for a unilateral 30 per cent cut in carbon emissions below 1990 levels by the EU by 2020, higher than the 20 per cent sought by the European Commission: The sponsor of the resolution, Karl-Heinz Florenz, is certainly doing his bit. For a year he has been energy self-sufficient:

"It is an individual responsibility: Everybody has a roof over their head and this roof could have solar panels on." He has solar panels and a wood-fired boiler fuelled by deadwood from the wood on his farm. "I use no oil," he says proudly:

Florenz, who was chairman of the environment commitee until last month; also takes the train to Strasbourg from his home in Germany, just over the Belgian border:

Fellow promoters of his resolution had less to boast about. Fellow German Peter Liese has bought a VW Lupo low-emission car, which is being withdrawn from production because of poor sales.

British Conservative John Bowis says he was examining his carbon footprint. "If we don’t do it, someone else will," he said.

Europe’s vets are more worried than they admit publicly about the outbreak of bird flu in the UK. Until now, there has been a familiar pattern. Wild migratory birds start dropping out of the sky, having brought the virus from Asia, and then their domestic farm cousins start keeling over too.

However, despite extensive searches around the Bernard Matthews turkey farm on the east coast of England, no infected wild birds have been found. There are some sea gulls, which can carry the disease without succumbing to it. Nor are there infections on nearby farms. Of course this could happen any time.

But it’s a long way from Hungary, where the same virus has been found among geese, and Hungary is a long way from the sea. Is there another explanation?

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There is a new odd couple at the centre of the EU – Gabriel and Glos. You often have to pinch yourself to recall that Sigmar Gabriel and Michael Glos are members of the same government – Germany.

Gabriel is the up-and-coming environment minister from the centre-left Social Democratic party. Glos is the Christian Social - for which read Christian Democrat - economics minister from Bavaria,  a conservative heartland and one of the richest areas of Europe. He wants it to stay that way. So he has no time for eco-warriors wanting to dent its way of life. The two are strange bedfellows in a grand coalition government and Tuesday once again proved why.

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Are Europe’s governments just blowing hot air when it comes to climate change? On Tuesday it was the turn of Belgium and the Netherlands to be told by Brussels that their proposed greenhouse gas emissions were too high.

Slovakia, meanwhile, is mulling over whether to take legal action after a similar order.

Last week the European Commission called for ambitious targets to reduce emissions by at least 20 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020 but national governments seem reluctant to agree, undermining efforts to persuade George W Bush and others to join in a global scheme.

So far, the Commission has found 11 of the 12 plans for 2008-12 capped emissions at too high a level.

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Europe could soon have weaker pollution controls than the US. I’ll say that again. Europe could soon have weaker pollution controls than the US. In a surprising about turn, the European parliament voted this week to relax air quality controls.
The European Commission, the bureaucracy that comes up with the targets, was shocked. It has asked member states, who must ultimately agree them, to sharpen them again. If they refuse, the Commission could scrap its proposal altogether.

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