Young people across Europe are demanding that EU leaders raise their ambitions on climate change: the EU’s carbon reduction target should be a more ambitious 30% and not the current target of 20%. This is stated in a letter received today by Environment Ministers in all 27 Member States and co-signed by 21 European organisations.

The campaign, called ‘Push Europe’, centres on young people looking for careers in the low carbon economy of the future. It follows a declaration coordinated by WWF and signed by 72 businesses including household names like Coca-Cola, ASDA, IKEA and Google, also calling for a 30% reduction target.

By Julian Scola, Communications Director, EWEA

Global Wind Day continued into the weekend with the inauguration of the 10 turbine Leuze-en- Hainaut wind farm in Belgium. On a suitably windy afternoon thousands of local residents turned up to tour two of the ten 2.05MW turbines  which had been opened up for inspection.

The wind park was developed by Belgian electricity providers Electrabel, ELSA a company set up by an inter-communale development agency and CLEF a citizens cooperative which is raising €750,000 in 2011 to invest in the wind farm with shares starting at €250.

By Tuuliki Kasonen, General Manager of Estonian Wind Power Association

Ever heard of people saying “life is nowadays happening online”? Well, that’s where the Global Wind Day took place in Estonia this year. The key activities were fun video clips going viral in social media combined with an online interview where people were able to ask everything about wind energy. We handed out flower seeds at the Ehituse ABC (Building ABC) stores but for that single physical action that took place in four cities we also had a home-made video of how to plant those seeds.

By Angelika Pullen, Communications Director, GWEC

A consumer label for wind power called WindMade could soon be coming to the market, to show consumers which companies and products use wind energy. This is an idea that was first announced in January this year, and after many months of hard work and anticipation, new details were made public on Global Wind Day (15 June).

During a media briefing in New York City, the WindMade consortium, which consists of Vestas, GWEC, WWF, Bloomberg, LEGO and the UN Global Compact, presented the first proposed technical standard for the WindMade label for companies. This standard contains the main requirements that a company has to fulfil in order to apply for using the label.

By Alexander Zirkel, BWE

Berlin. The Global Wind Day 2011 comes to Germany in a time of great change in its energy policy. After the terrible incidences in Fukushima, Japan, the German federal government wants the definite ending of the use of nuclear energy in Germany until 2022. Therefore a massive extension of renewable energy within the next few years is more then necessary.