CLIMATE CHANGE

A U.S. House of Representatives bill aimed at fighting global warming will allow some polluters access to free permits to emit greenhouse gas emissions in its cap-and-trade system, Democratic Representative Edward Markey said on Thursday.

China should be praised for its lead role in a U.N.-backed scheme to cut carbon emissions and efforts to cap its flow of credits should be resisted, a leading British-based clean-energy project development firm said.

Britain will fund at least two and up to four carbon capture and storage demonstration plants, from previous plans to support just one, finance minister Alistair Darling said on Wednesday.

Environment ministers from rich and poor nations discussed a green technology stimulus on Wednesday to help tackle global warming and overcome the global economic crisis.

Residents of the Thai capital produce as much carbon pollution as New Yorkers and more than Londoners, a U.N.-backed study released on Wednesday shows.

U.S. lawmakers will pass major energy legislation, possibly including measures to address climate change, by the end of this year, a top White House official said on Sunday.

Ahead of key hearings about the American Clean Energy and Security Act scheduled for next week, Henry Waxman, Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said he will not shift from his proposal to reduce greenhouse gases 20 percent by 2020.

The Obama administration opened the way to regulating U.S. greenhouse gas emissions on Friday by declaring climate-warming pollution a danger to human health and welfare, in a sharp policy shift from the Bush administration.

The Obama administration wants to ensure that legislation being crafted by Congress to fight global climate change does not violate international trade rules and backfire on U.S. exports, the top U.S. trade official said in a letter to a Republican lawmaker.

U.S. President Barack Obama hopes to get a climate change bill on his desk this year and is open to discussing how stringent the rules of a carbon emissions trading system should be for industry, a top adviser said on Tuesday.

Australia's energy supply network will need almost A$100 billion ($72 billion) in refinancing and new spending over the next five years as it grapples with reducing greenhouse gas emissions, according to an industry survey released on Tuesday.

The threat of tougher regulation from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency should ease industrial opposition to a cap-and-trade market on greenhouse gases, a U.S. lawmaker said on Monday.

Japan's latest burst of economic stimulus spending is aimed at promoting energy-efficient products made by recession-hit exporters, but analysts say it is unlikely to help the world's fifth-biggest polluter cut greenhouse gas emissions.

A $6 cardboard box that uses solar power to cook food, sterilize water and could help 3 billion poor people cut greenhouse gases, has won a $75,000 prize for ideas to fight global warming.

President Barack Obama will be flexible about climate change legislation moving through Congress, the White House said on Wednesday, indicating some wiggle room on his demand for full auctioning of carbon emissions permits to industry.

A portion of the revenue from any U.S. system capping carbon emissions must go toward softening the impact of higher energy prices on consumers, a White House official said on Wednesday.

Global warming is likely to overshoot a 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 F) rise seen by the European Union and many developing nations as a trigger for dangerous change, a Reuters poll of scientists showed on Tuesday.

Arctic sea ice, a key component of Earth's natural thermostat, has thinned sharply in recent years with the northern polar ice cap shrinking steadily in surface area, government scientists said on Monday.

It will be hard work getting rich nations to agree cuts in greenhouse gases that are deep enough to satisfy the demands of developing countries at climate talks, U.N.'s climate chief told Reuters on Monday.

The outage at Japan's biggest nuclear power station was likely to have pushed up manufacturers' CO2 emissions in the year ended last month, despite a slowdown in economic activity, a government official said on Friday.

Four of the world's top airlines have backed a global scheme to curb carbon emissions and hope the proposal will be included in a broader U.N. pact to fight climate change.