CLIMATE

General Motors responded to President Barack Obama's address on climate policies Monday, saying it was working aggressively to develop better hybrids and electric cars to reduce emissions and improve mileage.

Europe toned down a clash with the United States over 2020 climate goals on the final day of U.N. talks in Bali on Friday, raising hopes of a deal to start negotiations on a new global warming treaty.

The European Union threatened on Thursday to boycott U.S. talks among top greenhouse gas emitting nations, accusing Washington of blocking goals for fighting climate change at U.N. talks in Bali.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged the world on Wednesday to agree to work out a new climate treaty by 2009 but said it might be too ambitious to set goals for greenhouse gas cuts in Bali.

China wants next month's international talks on global warming to focus on future greenhouse gas cuts by rich countries and moving more clean technology to poor countries, an official said on Thursday.

Governments must do more to fight global warming, spurred by a new U.N. scientific report and damage to nature that is already as frightening as science fiction, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Saturday.

Tests of a new technology for capturing greenhouse gases from coal-fired power plants have achieved 95 percent cuts in a step towards new ways to fight climate change, a Norwegian company said on Friday.

The U.S. local food movement -- which used to be elite, expensive and mostly coastal -- has gone mainstream, with a boost from environmentalists who reckon that eating what grows nearby cuts down on global warming.

A growing sense of urgency is pushing world leaders to agree a new treaty to fight climate change but the U.S. presidential election might still foil hopes of a deal by the end of 2009, experts say.

Global warming will produce stay-at-home tourists over the next few decades, radically altering travel patterns and threatening jobs and businesses in tourism-dependent countries, according to a stark assessment by U.N experts.

U.S. President George W. Bush on Friday called for a "strong and transparent" way for nations to measure progress on fighting climate change but said each country should set its own approach. In a speech to a U.S.-sponsored conference of major emitting countries, Bush also called for the creation of a global fund to promote clean technology.

The weather anomaly La Nina could influence global weather patterns through the early part of 2008, according to the National Weather Service.

Talks on global warming in the United States next week may be complicated by differences among developing countries as their climate policy positions diverge.

A group of institutional investors, state officials and environmental groups called on the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday to force publicly-traded companies to disclose climate-related risks along with other factors that affect their business.

Twenty of the world's top polluting nations have agreed to discuss binding targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, Germany's environment minister said on Tuesday.

Twenty-one years after Chernobyl, the industry says nuclear power is clean, safe energy alternative.

Leaders at an Asia-Pacific summit appeared deadlocked on Thursday over what their Sydney Declaration on climate change and cutting greenhouse gas emissions should say.

President George W. Bush hopes to spur momentum for a world trade pact and a global target on climate change at this week's APEC summit in Sydney, but host Australia has warned not to expect binding greenhouse targets. The Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) summit will draw 21 leaders including Bush.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged China on Monday to do more to halt climate change, prompting the response that the developed West has been polluting the skies for much longer than the newly developing Chinese.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel will push for tougher global action against climate change on a tour of China and Japan next week which will also have business interests high on the agenda, officials said on Thursday.

Climate change and biofuels pose fresh challenges in the fight against poverty, which requires more than ever cooperation among scientists, the new head of an international body for agricultural research said.