On June 14, EU negotiators agreed to phase out the use of palm oil in transport fuels by 2030. The wording on the specifics of the phase-out are yet to be agreed upon, but EU negotiators agreed that the use of palm oil would be capped at 2019 levels until 2023 and reduced to zero by 2030. The agreement is part of the EU's efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030.

Following a vote by the European Parliament to ban palm oil in European biofuels, British supermarket chain Iceland Foods decided to exclude palm oil from its store brand products. While some applauded this action and considered it a bold stance against deforestation and land grabbing, some scientists and conservationists expressed concern about the decision's environmental impacts.

The European Union will ban the world’s most widely used insecticides from all fields due to the serious danger they pose to bees. The ban on neonicotinoids, approved by member nations on April 27, is expected to come into force by the end of 2018 and will mean they can only be used in closed greenhouses. The plummeting numbers of pollinators in recent years has been blamed, in part, on the widespread use of pesticides. The EU banned the use of neonicotinoids on flowering crops that attract bees, such as oil seed rape, in 2013.

A new report from the Global Carbon Project and the University of East Anglia projects that carbon emissions will have risen about two percent by the end of 2017. According to the report, global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels and industry will reach about 37 billion metric tons in 2017, setting a new record. Emissions from all human activities, including fossil fuel use, industry, and land-use change, is projected to be about 41 billion metric tons, close to the record set in 2015. The report points to China and other developing countries as the cause of the increase.

France rejected the EU Commission's five-year extension to the license for weed-killer glyphosate. France seeks an extension that does not exceed four years. The five-year extension was a compromise after a ten-year extension was previously rejected. Europe has been split over the chemical, a key ingredient in Monsanto Co’s top-selling weed-killer Roundup, after the World Health Organization’s cancer research agency concluded in March 2015 it was a substance that probably causes cancer.

EU policymakers are split over carbon market reforms ahead of U.N. climate talks scheduled in November. Negotiators for EU nations and the European Parliament will meet October 12 to try to finalize reforms to the EU Emissions Trading System. The cap-and-trade system has suffered from a oversupply of permits. Negotiators are still striving to bridge divisions over how to balance environmental ambitions with protection for energy-intensive industries.

Ahead of the G20 summit a report revealed that the G20 nations provide four times more public financing to fossil fuels than renewable energy. The authors of the report accused the G20 of “talking out of both sides of their mouths.” Soft loans and government guarantees, along with fossil fuel subsidies, make fossil fuel plants cheaper and lock in carbon emissions for decades to come. A new report showed that G20 countries provided an average of $71.8 billion of public finance for fossil fuel projects per year between 2013-2015, compared to $18.7 billion for renewable energy.

The EU is intending to pass into law this year a rule that would require EU electric utilities to offer flexible pricing contracts. These contracts would effectively reduce the cost of electricity when the supply of energy is, abundant; in electric grids with renewable energy, this means during times when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing.

Though having no elephants, Europe is responsible for exporting the most raw and carved ivory to the world. Despite bans on international ivory trade since 1990, European vendors had received an exemption to export ivory “harvested” before the international regulations went into place. However, falsified records allowed illegally collected ivory into the market; 2016 was another record year of ivory seizures across the continent.

In an effort to prevent another Volkswagen-like tailpipe emissions scandal, the European Union has announced that it will take legal action against member governments that have failed to police vehicle emissions testing. One core problem is that national regulators who inspect domestically made cars sometimes certify cars that do not meet standards. Another is that only the producing country can issue a recall, even though the vehicles can be sold throughout the EU.