The US Congress has taken its first big step towards passing a cap and trade bill to tackle global warming but the proposed legislation faces a tough fight to be passed by the Senate.

A vote on Thursday night in the key House committee on energy and commerce set out proposals for a bill to reduce US carbon emissions to 17 per cent below 2005 levels by 2020 and by 83 per cent by 2050.

The passage of the cap-and-trade bill through the committee stage has driven a wedge through the US environmental lobby, Fiona Harvey reports .

The United Arab Emirates has told the International Atomic Energy Agency it plans to have its first nuclear power plant ready in 2015, an IAEA official said yesterday.
The news comes a day after Barack Obama, US president, approved a nuclear energy deal with the UAE worth potentially billions of dollars to US energy companies.

China adopted a hard line yesterday ahead of climate change negotiations, calling on rich countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions 40 per cent by 2020 from 1990 levels and help pay for reduction schemes in poorer countries.

RNL Bio, a South Korean biotech company, is venturing into the world of treating human diseases through stem cell therapies, raising the prospects of a new, highly profitable export industry.

The company, famous for the commercial cloning of dogs, is developing therapies using adult stem cells to treat degenerative diseases

Novartis yesterday said it would spend

After years of lambasting US vehicle efficiency standards as being weaker than those of China, green campaigners delighted in the stronger measures proposed by President Barack Obama, writes Fiona Harvey in London .

Royal Dutch Shell, Europe

US Congress is making a hash of climate change proposal

Whether a climate change bill emerges from the US Congress this year is much in doubt. Most Republicans still oppose the very idea of reducing emissions of greenhouse gases. Democrats are less than united in their commitment to it, once forced to consider the implications. The signs are that if a bill does somehow pass, it will be ugly.

Australia plans to build one of the world