Once again Europe is trailing the United States, Japan and South Korea when it comes to boosting innovation and meeting EU targets of devoting 3% of GDP to research and development. More »

Did we need to replace Chris Huhne at all? Nigel Lawson, a former editor of The Spectator (amongst other things), has an intriguing idea in a letter to today’s FT: just break up the Department for Energy and Climate Change. It has done nothing to encourage the development of shale gas, which — as we argue in a leader in tomorrow’s Spectator — could keep Britain in energy fo...

US State Secretary Hillary Clinton lobbied for the development of shale gas in Bulgaria during a weekend visit, more than two weeks after the country's Parliament passed a moratorium on an industry where US major Chevron has big stakes. More »

Only three days into the job and Ed Davey’s first political challenge has arisen – a demand from the unreconstructed Tory back benches for a halt to onshore wind farm development. The Tories are taking aim at the subsidies onshore wind farm receive to enable them to compete with fossil fuel, claiming that they’re unaffordable

Development secretary Andrew Mitchell says he will not bow to pressure to cut funds after France was preferred in a bid for a fighter jet contract

“We do not require the aid,” he said, according to the official transcript of the session. “It is a peanut in our total development exercises [expenditure].” He said the Indian government wanted to “voluntarily” give it up. According to a leaked memo, the foreign minister, Nirumpama Rao, proposed “not to avail [of] any further DFID

Ivan Lewis MP, Labour's Shadow International Development Secretary, responding to the Government’s response to the International Development Select Committee's report on Burundi, said:

This is the title of a poor quality piece in The Guardian. It's mainly a profile of Leanne Wood, apparently the favourite to take over the leadership of Plaid Cymru (who knew?). A "proud republican", she views Wales's economic development as typical of other colonial/extractive economies like those in Latin America. Her "Greenprint" for the south Wales valleys sets out a vision of "food ...

EU Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard says global development challenges cannot be met if the world's economic powers do not rethink their growth model. In an exclusive interview with EurActiv, she also addresses controversial policies on emission charges for airlines and rejects calls for a price floor to sustain Europe's depressed carbon market. More »

We are lucky it is a leap year.  It gives us an extra day to save the country. Here are two graphs, both from the Financial Times.  This one shows the UK’s Nominal Gross Domestic Product.  It shows the development of the double dip recession we are facing. The figures are up to October 2011.