David Suzuki, Canada’s best-known environmentalist, dismissed wind power critics on Tuesday and said the emissions-free generating technology should be embraced by a world dealing with climate change.

“It’s never easy to find energy technologies that will satisfy everyone, but with the world facing ever-growing negative consequences of burning fossil fuels, we must weigh our options,” Suzuki said in a column in the Georgia Straight news magazine. “In doing so, wind power comes out ahead.”

Sparkling on the horizon from the Belgian seaside resort of Oostende stands the Thornton Bank offshore wind farm. One windy day last week the EWEA team set out to see these turbines – six tall towers which form phase one of the offshore farm’s development – up close and personal.

At some 30km from the coast the 5 MW C-Power turbines are part of the world’s first wind farm to be built so far from the shore. Nearly two hours by boat led to a few queasy passengers, but finally we reached our destination and were able to view the turbines standing proud in the middle of the North Sea rooted into the Belgian Continental Shelf.

By Andy Hix, Push Europe

Today Ministers in Brussels will vote on whether to review the EU’s target of reducing its carbon emission by 20% by 2020. In the lead up to this decision, young people across Europe have been calling for a target of at least 30% as a first step towards a cleaner, fairer future.

I was part of a team of three young people that met with youth organisations in ten European countries as part of the Push Europe campaign, which brings together theUK Youth Climate Coalition, Young Friends of the Earth Europe and Bund Jugend,. We collected 300 ‘CVs’ from young people who want to work in a low carbon economy and filmed them talking about their visions for such an economy and which we presented to the Danish and UK Ministers for Energy and Climate Change.

One of the most interesting news items in the past week was a report that energy-challenged China is planning to rapidly boost its offshore wind sector to 30 GW by 2020.

According to the nation’s National Energy Administration, China will increase its offshore wind power installed capacity to 5 GW in the next five years and create a complete technology and industrial chain to service the growing sector.