Green Times

Vast grasslands provide a promising future for clean energy in China, with rich reserves of solar and wind power and great biofuels potential, experts at an international conference here said. Zhang Yingjun, a professor who specializes in grassland research at Beijing-based China Agricultural University, said to develop liquid fuels (mainly ethanol, at […]

China said it is open to general discussion of longer-term goals and industrial targets to combat global warming at the G8 summit, but fended off talk of any specific pledges, stressing rich nations should lead the way.Despite its growing economic and diplomatic clout, China is not a member of the Group of Eight industrialised countries […]

Bangladesh has proposed the creation a fund to fight climate change in densely populated South Asia, which experts say is vulnerable to rising seas, melting glaciers and greater extremes of droughts and floods.Regional experts on climate change began two days of talks in Dhaka on Tuesday, ahead of a meeting of environment ministers from countries […]

Penguin colonies are collapsing because global warming, pollution and over-fishing are damaging their ocean habitat in the southern hemisphere, a researcher at the University of Washington said.Penguins are serving as a “canary in the coal mine,” and their declining numbers are evidence that people are altering the animals’ environment, said Dee Boersma, a biology professor […]

California has more than two thousand kinds of plants that are not found anywhere else. A new study says climate change could severely affect these plants by the end of the century.Many could move northward and toward the Pacific coast in reaction to rising temperatures and changes in rainfall. Others might climb up mountains to […]

Spiralling oil prices should not distract G8 leaders from efforts to draw up a global deal to tackle climate change, a report has urged.Climate Strategies, an international climate policy network based at Cambridge University, said knee-jerk attempts to deal with the higher prices, for example by a shift to new more carbon intensive sources of […]

Scottish and Southern Energy has announced a deal with the operator of six ports in Scotland and a major port in London to develop up to 150 MW of on-site renewable energy projects.The energy supplier will work with Forth Ports to invest in generation, distribution and supply of renewable energy for the port sites themselves […]

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said Friday that the country did not need to adopt nuclear energy to address climate change.The centre-left leader’s stance reverses the policy of his conservative predecessor John Howard, who announced plans to embrace the next generation of power plans before he was voted out of office last November.
Rudd said his […]

Thousands of new wind turbines could be built across the UK as part of a £100bn investment in renewable energy that could create hundreds of thousands of new “green collar” jobs, Gordon Brown announced today.The prime minister unveiled what he described as a “green revolution” and “the most dramatic change in energy policy since the […]

The world already knows that global warming is a serious problem and the time has come for politicians and experts to come together to map out a practical solution, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair said Friday.Urging the Group of Eight industrialized nations to stand behind his initiative, Blair said he gave Japanese Prime Minister […]