The UK's greenhouse gas emissions rose in 2010, the first increase since 2003, figures confirmed today.

It may have been boom time in the Square Mile, but not everyone was along for the ride. While the Footsie closed last night at its highest since last July, Cairn Energy was among the stocks missing out on the rally amid fears the oil explorer is about to come under sustained pressure.

Some of the world's biggest companies are in the running for an award that none of them actually wants. This Friday, two will be singled out as the biggest offenders of the year for "contempt for the environment and human rights".

The French authorities have been left red-faced after Greenpeace activists yesterday morning managed to infiltrate three nuclear power stations across the country.

Oil and gas explorer Cairn Energy revealed more misery for its controversial drilling campaign off the coast of Greenland today as it failed to find oil in two more wells.

Greenpeace urges Commission to end 'corrupted' fisheries policy

Environmental campaigners today accused a UK oil company of "breathtaking irresponsibility" over its plans for clearing up a possible spill in the Arctic.

Greenpeace served legal papers today accusing the Government of failing to take into account the implications of Japan's Fukushima disaster in future planning for the building of new nuclear power stations in the UK.

Greenland said last night it would publish its oil spill response plan, in a move which could dampen some of the controversy surrounding oil exploration in its waters.

Investors in Cairn Energy were left disappointed yesterday after the oil prospector said a well drilled as part of its controversial Greenland exploration campaign had come up dry.

Outlook Having seen what happened to BP in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, one can understand why Cairn Energy might feel a little edgy about the protests against its drilling for oil in the Arctic Ocean off the coast of Greenland. But if an oil company were to write a masterplan for setting itself up as a big bad bogey figure, the way Cairn is behaving in its continuing dispute with Greenpeace would surely provide the blueprint.

Cairn Energy, the oil prospector whose Edinburgh offices were targeted by Greenpeace activists dressed up as polar bears on Monday, has been granted a court order to prevent a repeat of the incident.

More than 60 Greenpeace activists, around half of whom were dressed as polar bears, entered and staged a protest at the Edinburgh headquarters of FTSE 100-listed Cairn Energy yesterday, demanding that the oil and gas prospector publish plans detailing how it would respond in the event of an oil spill at its Arctic operations off the Greenland coast.

A Greenpeace video attacking the environmental record of Volkswagen has been dropped from the internet after a complaint from the creator of Star Wars.