“Energy and climate change are two challenges that we must tackle at the world level. Europe forms part of the solution, and I am determined to see to it that the European Union is in the front line in tackling them, especially within the G8. I therefore hope that the greatest experts in the world are able to provide us with independent advice as we gradually proceed towards a low carbon economy”, said the President of the European Commission Josè Manuel Barroso, in announcing to the press the setting up of an advisory group on questions relating to energy and climate change. The Group met for the first time in Brussels last week, in tandem with the spring meeting of the European Council (whose main conclusions refer precisely to the reduction of polluting emissions and greenhouse gases). Members of the group of experts include the Frenchman Claude Mandil, executive director of the International Agency for Energy, the Maltese Michael Zammit Cutajar, former secretary of the UN Convention on climate change and the Italian Carlo Rubbia, Nobel prize-winner for physics in 1984.
