Economic stimulus plans being rolled out across the world could commit countries to rapid growth in greenhouse gas emissions, cancelling out some of the green initiatives included within them, analysis has found.

The price of carbon dioxide in the European Union has fallen so low it no longer provides an incentive to low-carbon development, and seems unlikely to do so in the near future.

Permits to emit the gas, issued by the EU

Ryanair shareholders attending the company's general meeting in Dublin in September were bemused by a sight not often associated with such gatherings, when a bare-chested young man wearing an oxygen mask approached the podium where Michael O'Leary, the chief executive, was speaking.

The first mandatory US inter-state carbon trading system will open tomorrow with the auction of carbon permits to power -stations. It will be widely watched across the country for lessons in how a nationwide cap-and-trade system could function.

Wind power has long been the big beast of the renewable energy jungle. The technology to generate electricity from wind has been established for more than two decades, and in the past five years has been refined and expanded towards much larger and more powerful turbines including ones that can be used at sea, and towards very small turbines that can be fixed to office buildings or houses.

It did not take long for biofuels to turn from one of the darlings of the environmental movement to the bugbear.

Some US fund firms are green only in patches. They oppose nearly all shareholder resolutions to take action on climate change, despite aggressive investment in climate-related business activities. Morgan Stanley and State Street Global Advisors were singled out for criticism of their "inconsistent behaviour" by Ceres, a grouping of investors with an environmental purpose.

Greenhouse gases have been the big focus of most companies' environmental efforts for several years, with pollution a close second. But another equally pressing environmental issue has received much less attention: water. For most companies in the developed world, water is not much of a problem. Water bills are generally a tiny part of overheads, and unless there is a drought or flood, companies can count on it flowing from the tap.

The list of businesses going "green" lengthens by the day. Household names such as Wal-Mart, Coca-Cola, General Electric, Hewlett-Packard and L'Orealboast programmes to cut their greenhouse gas emissions, use natural resources more efficiently, recycle more and clear up pollution. These initiatives have gained approval from consumers and praise from environmental groups, but what will happen if the economy slows? Will companies continue to put efforts into improving their environmental credentials? Or will these green buds wither in the chill wind blowing through the markets?

The Stern report on climate change underestimated the risks of global warming, its author said on Wednesday, and should have presented a gloomier view of the future. "We underestimated the risks ... we underestimated the damage associated with temperature increases ... and we underestimated the probabilities of temperature increases,' Lord Stern, former chief economist at the World Bank, told the Financial Times on Wednesday.