CLIMATE

The United States hopes to reach agreement with China during President Barack Obama's visit on how to record and monitor countries' efforts to fight global warming, a top State Department official said on Tuesday.

The world will have to spend an extra $500 billion to cut carbon emissions for each year it delays implementing a major assault on global warming, the International Energy Agency said on Tuesday.

A climate change deal is needed not just to ward off global warming, but to ensure a shift from increasingly costly fossil fuels that could lead to a doubling of energy bills, the IEA's chief economist said on Tuesday.

Rich countries and developing nations fought over climate change on Saturday, failing to make progress on financing ahead of a major environmental summit in Copenhagen next month.

About 40 world leaders plan to go to Copenhagen next month to boost the chances of clinching a U.N. climate deal, the United Nations said Friday as preparatory talks wound down with scant progress.

A U.N. climate deal due to be agreed in Copenhagen at talks from December 7-18 may fall short of a legally binding treaty, according to the United Nations.

European Union carbon emissions futures wilted slightly on Friday but were largely unaffected by news that a U.N. climate pact will likely be delayed into 2010, traders said.

A U.N. climate treaty may need an extra year beyond a December deadline to agree details, delegates at U.N. talks said on Thursday even as a U.S. Senate committee approved a carbon-capping bill.

An international pact and U.S. legislation to tackle climate change will hit oil refiners' profits and may force some to shut some capacity, Thomas O'Malley, chairman of Swiss refiner Petroplus, said on Thursday.

A controversial climate change bill cleared its first hurdle in the U.S. Senate on Thursday, allowing President Barack Obama to tout progress in the run-up to next month's global warming talks in Copenhagen.

The U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on Thursday approved a Democratic climate change bill that would require industry to cut emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases 20 percent by 2020 from 2005 levels.

The general insurance industry may not be able to cope with the increased frequency and severity of floods and typhoons brought about by climate change, the Association of British Insurers (ABI) said on Wednesday.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is expected to urge the United States to take bold action to combat global warming in a speech to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday, a month before a U.N. climate summit.

Democrats who control a key U.S. Senate panel said they would begin debating a climate change bill on Tuesday, despite a planned boycott by minority Republicans who are demanding more study of the issue.

European Union leaders resolved a funding dispute on Friday to agree a negotiating position for talks on a global deal to combat climate change.

Big energy and engineering companies will reap most profit from a climate deal due in December, as they use their financial and intellectual clout to grab low carbon subsidies

Australia stepped up lobbying ahead of the global climate talks in Copenhagen on Wednesday, with Prime Minister Kevin Rudd accepting a key role as Climate Change Minister Penny Wong heads to Spain for talks.

The United States does not expect to reach an agreement on climate change with China during President Barack Obama's visit to Beijing next month, the country's senior climate change envoy said on Wednesday.

Democrats in the Senate are trying to make progress on a climate change bill to give a boost to an international global warming summit in Copenhagen in December.

A Senate committee on Tuesday launches three long days of hearings on a Democratic climate bill in a bid to further convince an international summit in December that Washington is serious about tackling global warming.

The European Union should shift more of its spending to climate and energy security as part of a radical overhaul of the bloc's budget, according to a draft paper by the EU's executive arm