CLIMATE

Washington took a step on Monday toward curbing U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, aiding the first day of the biggest climate talks in history where 190 nations are seeking a deal to curb global warming.

About 15,000 delegates from about 190 nations are meeting in Copenhagen from Dec 7-18 and have been tasked with agreeing immediate action to curb greenhouse gases and come up with billions of dollars in climate aid for poorer countries.

COPENHAGEN - World concern about climate change has fallen in the past two years, according to an opinion poll on Sunday, the eve of 190-nation talks in Copenhagen meant to agree a U.N. deal to fight global warming.

The head of the U.N.'s panel of climate scientists on Monday strongly defended findings that humans are warming the planet, after critics said that leaked emails from a British university had undermined evidence.

Smart meters, which encourage consumers to cut energy consumption, are crucial for Britain to limit costs for achieving its ambitious 2050 greenhouse gas reduction target, an executive from National Grid said.

Humanity faces a profound emergency and unless we combine to take decisive action, climate change will ravage our planet, a joint editorial published in newspapers in 45 countries said on Monday.

U.N. talks billed as a turning point in a bid to slow global warming open on Monday seeking to agree curbs on greenhouse gas emissions and raise billions of dollars for the poor in aid and clean technology.

UN's climate science body said that the Climategate controversy was the work of a well-thought plan and the hackers were probably paid to do it. Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, vice-chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said the theft of emails from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit (CRU) was not the work of amateur climate skeptics.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will attend the end of the U.N. climate summit, joining dozens of leaders including U.S. President Barack Obama, in the latest sign of growing momentum toward a new global accord.

President Obama, who had planned to speak at the climate change summit in UN summit on climate change in Copenhagen on Wednesday, will now only arrive on Dec. 18, the White House said Friday.

Wealthy nations must fight climate change on security grounds, as they will have to deal with any mass movement of people displaced by the effects of global warming, Nobel Prize laureate Wangari Maathai said on Friday.

A U.N.-led drive to raise cash to help poor nations cope with global warming is looking fairly encouraging, three days before a 190-nation climate conference, the U.N.'s top climate official said on Friday.

After two years of work, and 12 years after their last attempt, 190 nations gather in Copenhagen from Monday to try to avert dramatic climate change -- what one minister called the most difficult talks ever embarked upon by humanity.

Following are the negotiating positions of major nations before a 190-nation U.N. conference in Copenhagen on December 7-18 which will try to work out a new pact to combat climate change.

Kenya could lose up to 3 percent of its $35 billion GDP annually by 2030 due to global warming, a donor-funded study on the impact of climate change on east Africa's biggest economy showed on Friday.

Nepal's cabinet began a meeting close to the base camp of Mount Everest on Friday to send a message on the impact of global warming on the Himalayas, days before global climate talks start in Copenhagen.

The British university of East Anglia announced Thursday to probe into allegations that its scientists manipulated data about global warming.

Google announced Thursday a new service called Google Public DNS (Domain Name System), that allows users to utilize the Google DNS servers to access the Internet.

The director of a U.K research unit has said he is standing down from his post after hundreds of private e-mails were published on the internet when a computer hacker breached the security of the CRU database in November and stole numerous materials that are skeptical about climate change.

The British university caught in the center of what climate skeptics are calling ClimateGate, said on Thursday it's called an outside reviewer to lead the investigation. Ex-civil servant Sir Muir Russell will head the probe into the hacked e-mails and documents from the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit (CRU) in the UK last month.

The planet would be better off if the forthcoming Copenhagen climate change talks ended in collapse, according to a leading U.S. scientist who helped alert the world to dangers of global warming.