Cap-and-trade legislation passed by the House of Representatives late on Friday will make it easier for the US to impose import tariffs against countries that do not control their own carbon emissions.

The US House of Representatives has passed a bill to limit greenhouse gases. The White House lobbied hard for it:

As the healthcare debate picks up in the US, there has been much discussion about how to pay for it. Coinciding with this debate are vocal concerns about the country's underlying fiscal position - which some have suggested as a reason to delay healthcare reform.

The White House today will step up the fight for health reform, releasing a report that says a lower rate of health cost inflation could make the average US family of four $2,560 a year better off by 2020.

The destruction of the Amazon rainforest to make way for cattle ranches has been directly linked for the first time to patterns of consumption of beef and leather in the developed world, according to campaigners.

Climate change is moving up the agenda of mutual funds, with an increasing number voting in favour of resolutions that ask companies to assess the impact climate change is having on their business.

Climate change is claiming 300,000 lives a year and costing the global economy $125bn annually, with the damage set to escalate rapidly, according to the first study of the immediate effects of global warming.

It has been a long while since "Old Europe" was at the frontier of anything very much. But in energy and environmental policy it has blazed a trail that many other economies are now following, most notably the US under Barack Obama, the president.

Barack Obama

Only a short time ago, African farmland seemed of little interest to outsiders. But last year's food crisis and water scarcity in many countries has changed foreigners' appetite with the result being that fertile soil in Africa is now sought by international investors to the tune of hundreds of thousands of hectares.