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The world's top emitters of greenhouse gases, pledged on Saturday to work together to attenuate the effects of global climate change.

Guest contribution by Molly Walsh, climate and energy campaigner at Friends of the Earth EuropeA public consultation on state support for renewable energies closes tomorrow. The proposed guidelines Commissioner Almunia’s DG Competition are consulting on  have caused consternation in the renewable sector and particularly among citizens and communities involved in running smaller renewables projects. State [...]

The Ivanpah solar power plant in California is the largest and first electric generator of its kind. It could also be the last.
    

Cleaner burning than diesel as a transportation fuel, but production leads to leaks of methane, which is more potent than carbon dioxide, a report says.
    

UK Only Article:  standard article Issue:  The parable of Argentina Fly Title:  Geopolitics Rubric:  The energy boom is good for America and the world. It would be nice if Barack Obama helped a bit Main image:  20140215_LDP002_0.jpg “RISE early, work hard, strike oil.” The late oil baron J. Paul Getty’s formula for success is working rather well for America, which may already have surpassed Russia as the world’s largest producer of oil and gas (see article). By 2020 it should have overtaken Saudi Arabia as the largest pumper of oil, the more valuable fuel. By then the “fracking” revolution—a clever way of extracting oil and gas from shale deposits—should have added 2-4% to American GDP and created twice as many jobs than carmaking provides today. All this is a credit to American ingenuity. Commodities have been a mixed blessing for other countries (see our leader on Argentina). But this oil boom is earned: it owes less to geological luck than enterprise, ready finance and dazzling technology. ...

A small step on the long road to fusion as a bountiful energy source.
    

Looking to reduce energy bills and environmental strains, operators of supercomputers are immersing them in cooling liquids.
    

Duke Energy said Friday that it was diverting the flow of coal ash away from the Dan River, but the company could not yet declare the huge spill fully contained nearly a week after it was discovered.
    

UK Only Article:  standard article Issue:  The worldwide wobble Fly Title:  Canada, America and oil Rubric:  Canada can’t wait to start pumping. The United States can Location:  OTTAWA MINUTES after America’s State Department declared on January 31st that a proposed cross-border oil-pipeline would have little environmental impact, Canada’s ruling Conservatives posted an online ad bluntly directing Barack Obama to “approve Keystone XL now”. It is not the first time that Canada has dropped the diplomatic niceties when pressing Mr Obama to approve the Keystone pipeline, which would carry crude from Alberta’s tar sands to refineries on the Texas coast. Stephen Harper, Canada’s prime minister, has previously threatened to sell the oil to Asia, called approval a “no-brainer” and insisted he “would not take no for an answer”. But Mr Obama seems to be in no rush. Developing the tar sands and exporting its oil is a priority for Mr Harper, whose political roots lie in energy-rich Alberta. The pipeline, which ...

The Obama administration is to announce the creation of seven regional hubs to help farmers better respond to climate disasters.
    

Success could result in the most significant action taken by the United States to curb climate change. But it will not come easily.
    

IN THE debate over climate change, policies to reduce pollution are often seen as detrimental to economic growth. But this need not always be the case. As we pointed out last month, policies such as cutting fossil-fuel subsidies can both cut carbon emissions and boost growth.A new paper* suggests another measure to curb pollution that may have had beneficial long-term economic impacts for individuals. The paper’s authors, Adam Isen, Maya Rossin-Slater and Reed Walker, compared the adult labour-market outcomes of those born in counties in America where air pollution decreased as the result of the 1970 Clean Air Act to those born in areas where pollution did not fall in this period. They found that those who were born in counties that were forced to cut air pollution as a result of the legislation earned more by their thirties than they would have otherwise: gaining approximately $4,300 each in extra income over their lives.At first, this result may seem a little strange. As dirty industries closed in many affected areas as a result of the Clean Air Act, one would expect incomes to fall as the result of increased unemployment. Yet the authors of the paper found the opposite: the long-term benefits of better childhood health on adult incomes outweighed the other negative immediate economic effects that may have resulted from the legislation.The impact of air pollution ...

DAVID BUCKLAND, the founder of Cape Farewell, hopes to persuade the public to engage with the issue of climate change by using the language of art rather than science

UK Only Article:  standard article Issue:  The triumph of Vladimir Putin Fly Title:  Environment Rubric:  China stands out for its greenness in a new environmental ranking Location:  SHANGHAI CHINA is the world’s biggest polluter, so it is no surprise that it fares poorly on some measures of pollution in a new global index of environmental performance. The shock is that it also stands out for its world-beating greenness in other areas on the same index. The Environmental Performance Index (EPI), a joint product of America’s Yale and Columbia universities, is the latest volume in a long-running biennial ranking of 178 countries on a variety of measures of environmental performance. New this year are assessments of performance in waste-water treatment and combating climate change, as well as the clever use of satellite data (to track trends in forestry and air pollution) in order to top up traditional computer modelling and official data. The report’s conclusions are more cheerful than most green report ...

UK Only Article:  standard article Issue:  The triumph of Vladimir Putin Fly Title:  Letters Industry and climate change SIR – I was dismayed by your leader on European climate policy (“Worse than useless”, January 25th), which implied that harm to the steel industry would be an acceptable price to pay for policy reform. Europe’s carbon abatement targets are impossible for the steel industry to achieve as things stand. The best performing European steelmakers have greatly reduced their emissions in recent decades, easily beating Kyoto ambitions. But no further progress can be achieved without breakthrough technologies, the development of which, even if viable, is years away and crushingly expensive. We all share the goal of finding an effective response to climate change. However, European climate policy is damaging the competitiveness of European steel and forcing the shift of industrial production from world-leading industries in Europe to much less efficient and polluting industries in other parts of the world. There is nothing effective about setting targets for reducing emissions without taking into account the technological ...

Subsidies on petroleum products and fossil energy have become a deeply rooted vice in many countries across the globe, especially oil-rich ones.

They can be quite expensive, absorbing two to ten percent of GDP in a dozen countries resorting to this fallacious political favour.

They constitute a hidden economic and environmental burden to the respective countries.

When poor countries like Egypt or Yemen spend 20 to 30% of their budget on fossil fuel subsidies they lack the means for investing more in vital education and health services, while imploring the international donor community to fill the gap.

Gasoline subsidies favour car owners at the expense the poor who cannot afford a car and enhance social inequalities in developing countries. According to World Bank estimates they amounted to more than $ 100 billion in 2012 which governments should rather invest in education and health care.

They are also perverse from a climate perspective: low gasoline prices induce people to ride more. Thus countries with low gasoline prices like Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Kuwait register the highest per capita fuel  consumption.

They do not offer any incentives for buying fuel-efficient vehicles. Venezuela is a good example. Its citizens enjoy the lowest gasoline price on earth: $ 0.015/liter, which is 10% of the Saudi price and 1% of EU prices! No wonder that the highways are also crowded with gas guzzlers.

Some countries like Iran and Indonesia have made efforts in phasing out their subsidies; in other others like Nigeria such efforts have temporarily aborted because they were too hasty provoking popular unrest.

To be successful countries have to proceed incrementally. The longer subsidies have been in place the more difficult it is to scrap them. With its decades-old and unsustainable grain and gasoline subsidies Egypt is a sad example.

Gasoline and diesel subsidies are only part of the wider story of fossil energy subsidies, which annually amount to more than $ 500 billion globally.

In the forthcoming climate conferences the EU should combine with UN, IEA and other countries to insist that all countries commit to phase their subsidies out before 2025 latest.

Eberhard Rhein, Brussels, 30/01/2014

Facing criticism and legal trouble, companies working in the Bakken shale field said they would try to recapture more of the natural gas now burned as waste.
    

The Union of Concerned Scientists finds big holes in the argument of four scientists seeking a fresh push on nuclear energy.
    

The only American-owned uranium-enrichment company is struggling to raise billions to construct a modern centrifuge facility, while a European-owned rival thrives in New Mexico.
    

The sloth, known for its sluggishness, has carved out a clever mode of life as a kind of walking ecosystem, but its lifestyle does constrain its energy level.