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Environment

German air pollution rises despite green zones

German air pollution levels were higher in 2011 than in previous years, despite environmental zones banning certain cars from urban areas. Authorities attribute the rise to weather and industry.

Shipping asked to clean up its act

Chinese airlines refuse to pay EU carbon tax

Paris tests Autolib' electric car-sharing program

Auto Industry

An electric car being recharged

Cars' emissions

A study says stricter fuel laws would be greener than Berlin's plans for 1 million electric cars.

Environment

Chain reaction

Rules to check supply chains in war zones and environmental hotspots gather momentum.

DW's Ice Blog

Irene Quaile schreibt einen Iceblog

Climate change in the Arctic and around the globe.

Gulf stream heating up

what we're reading

On the Minds of the Whales - The New York Review of Books

Cut emissions, boost health - European Voice

India's panel price crash - New Scientist

Restoring Germany's moors

Flooding dried-out moors could make them arable again and reduce the carbon dioxide they release.

Global ideas - ideas for a cooler world

Microcredit loans for solar power in the Philippines

Generating electricity from window panes in Nicaragua

Saving the gorillas' habitat in Rwanda

Laos fights for its forests

Saving energy in India

Transportation

A container ship with a dark cloud rising from its smoke stack

Floating polluters

Activists want the shipping industry to clean up its act after years of lax emissions rules.

What happens to the wreck of the Costa Concordia?

Radio

Living Planet

Listen to our weekly environment show or check out individual reports and past episodes.

Living Planet (02.02.12)
  • Not so humble spud
    more

    GM foods in Europe

    Not so humble spud

    The antipathy towards GM crops among consumers and farmers has been so vocal that Germany's BASF Plant Science announced this January it would relocate the subsidiary to the United States. The move spells the end for its Amflora potato, pictured here, in Europe. The spud variety delivers a specific kind of starch that has only industrial uses and is not going to end up on plates.

  • Fed up with GM

    GM foods in Europe

    Fed up with GM

    Ever since the first genetically modified crop was approved for human consumption in the early 1990s, GM foods have been controversial, especially in Europe. Twenty years on, people are still demonstrating against their use, like this woman at the Green Week, the world's biggest food, agriculture and horticulture fair in Berlin.

  • No maize today

    GM foods in Europe

    No maize today

    Industry giant Monsanto also caved in to anti-GM sentiment. It has abandoned plans to sell its genetically modified maize seeds MON 810. France, like Germany, Austria and others had banned it, citing dangers to flora and fauna. Although a French court has just overturned the ban, Monsanto sees no public support for MON 810, which has been the only commercially produced transgenic plant in Europe.

  • GM food through GM feed

    GM foods in Europe

    GM food through GM feed

    The Americas are home to more than 90 percent of the world's GM crop cultivation. Opposition there, as well as in Asia and Africa, is not as vocal as in Europe. The European Union imports 30 million tons of genetically modified feed a year, with a large part of it coming from the United States.

  • Label with loopholes

    GM foods in Europe

    Label with loopholes

    Since 2004, all genetically modified foods in the EU have to be labeled, even if it contains just one GM ingredient. But that does not apply to meat, dairy and eggs coming from animals reared on GM feed, for example from the US, where GM labels are not mandatory. In Germany, look out for this label (which means GM free), if you want to be extra sure. The label is voluntary.

  • Robust crops

    GM foods in Europe

    Robust crops

    Transgenic plants often have in-built insecticides that make them more resistant to pests. Others contain extra nutrients like beta-carotene. Some GM crops contain oils that can withstand heat and processing without turning into harmful transfatty acids.

  • Fighting hunger

    GM foods in Europe

    Fighting hunger

    Those in favor of GM crops argue that those properties make them ideal in the fight against hunger, as crops can be grown more efficiently and be modified to provide vital nutrients to countries hit by malnutrition. But critics counter that seeds are often too expensive for local farmers or cannot be grown in certain regions.

  • No thanks!

    GM foods in Europe

    No thanks!

    In 1996, the first genetically modified soybeans were cultivated in the United States and found their way into Europe via animal feed. Anti-GM groups like Greenpeace, pictured here in Germany protesting the use of GM soybeans in 1996, argue that modified crops can damage animals and foster monocultures by making crop rotation obsolete.

  • Medicinal uses

    GM foods in Europe

    Medicinal uses

    Transgenic plants have been used to help treat medical conditions. Bavarian hops, which German Food, Agriculture and Consumer Affairs Minister Ilse Aigner is throwing in the air here, do not just help make top quality beer, one of the plant's components can help with treating cancer and help with the menopause. The GM version of the hop yields that ingredient in much larger quantities.

  • Grown at home

    GM foods in Europe

    Grown at home

    Around 80 percent of Germans do not want GM foods in their shopping cart, according to a Forsa poll from May 2011. They are simply unsure about the long-term impact of GM crop cultivation. That's why German farmers are trying to grow staples such as soybeans, which mainly come from the US, on home soil.