The cap and trade system proposed in climate legislation now being discussed in the U.S. Senate is not the most effective way to regulate carbon and reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and its success is doubtful, according to a pioneer of the cap and trade concept.
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The U.S. Department of Energy's Information Administration will release its report on natural gas inventories. Analysts expect natural gas inventories gained 66 billion cubic feet last week, a larger than average increase. United Nations working groups are holding climate change talks from 10 to 14 August 2009 in Bonn, Germany.
China will make controlling greenhouse gas emissions an important part of its development plans, the government said, as pressure on the world's top emitter grows ahead of global talks on tackling climate change.
Australia's parliament rejected a plan for the world's most ambitious emissions trade regime as expected on Thursday, bringing the nation closer to a snap election and prolonging financial uncertainty for major emitters.
U.S. coal giant Peabody Energy Corp. said Australia's planned carbon trade scheme would hurt investment in coal mines and could force mine closures as Australia's parliament prepares to vote down the scheme.
Cutting greenhouse gas emissions to slow global warming and adapting to impacts such as droughts and rising sea levels are likely to cost about $300 billion a year, the top U.N. climate change official said.
Smart Meter producer Echelon Corp. saw its shares spike as much as 40 percent early Monday after announcing a long-term deal to supply smart meters to the third largest utility in the United States, Duke Energy Corp. North American nations said they would build a capacity and infrastructure with the view to facilitate future cooperation in greenhouse gas emissions trading systems to fight climate change.
The United States, Canada and Mexico on Monday unveiled steps to accelerate the commercialization of carbon capture and sequestration technologies in North America during the two-day North American Leaders Summit, in Guadalajara, Mexico which concluded on Monday.
New Zealand set itself a goal on Monday to cut carbon emissions by between 10 and 20 percent by 2020, holding off setting a hard target until a broader global climate pact now under negotiation takes shape.
The fate of a U.S. climate change bill will send signals to the rest of the world as to whether upcoming global climate talks will be serious or not, one of the bill's co-authors said on Thursday.
China will spend more than 15% ($88 billion) of the country's 4-trillion-yuan ($586 billion) stimulus package on cutting carbon emissions by the end of 2010, China's chief climate change negotiator said on Wednesday.
A new U.S. government study on Tuesday adds to a growing list of experts concluding that climate legislation moving through Congress would have only a modest impact on consumers, adding around $100 to household costs in 2020.
The U.S. Senate Committee on Finance held a hearing on the climate bill called Climate Change Legislation: Allowance and Revenue Distribution. Power company Duke Energy Co. said its profit declined 21 percent in the second quarter to $276 million or 21 cents per share from $351 million or 28 cents per share a year earlier.
The fate of U.S. climate control legislation is in the hands of the Senate, where it faces an uphill climb. Democratic leaders hope to put it to a vote in October.
The cap-and-trade bill will do little to stop trade wars overseas and will instead start conflicts that will threaten American workers at home and abroad, Missouri senator Kit Bond said Thursday during remarks at the Senate Environment and Public Works hearing.
Senator John Kerry, a leading architect of climate change legislation being drawn up in the U.S. Senate, on Wednesday said the bill will have tough controls to stop abusive financial market speculation on pollution permits that will be traded among companies.
The U.S. climate bill would give states that are heavily reliant on greenhouse-gas emitting fuels, like coal, more carbon credits on a per capita basis than those that use clean fuels, according to an analysis of the legislation released on Wednesday.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki- moon on Wednesday pressed China's responsibility to lead the global fight against climate change, which, Ban said, was the major focus of his trip in Asia.
Rich nations must agree to large, measurable cuts in their greenhouse gas emissions, if the world is to set a framework to tackle global warming at U.N.-led talks in December, a senior Chinese official said on Wednesday.
The United States and China, the world's largest emitters of greenhouse gases, signed an agreement on Tuesday that promises more cooperation on climate change, energy and the environment without setting firm goals.
Valero Energy Corp. chief executive officer Bill Klesse hopes the Waxman-Markey bill, which includes a proposal to enact a cap-and-trade system in the country, is eventually defeated when it gets into the U.S. Senate, he said Tuesday.
