A German government decision to back an almost total exemption for industry from new rules that would force companies to pay for the carbon dioxide they emit threatens to undermine a key tenet of European Union climate policy, climate campaigners warn.

Burning coal is the dirtiest, most old-fashioned way to produce electricity in the energy industry today.

However, in the coming years many governments and energy companies are hoping to reinvent coal as a cleaner, more modern form of energy in the coming years, as they try to reconcile energy security with the need to halt climate change.

First came the promise of pollution-free energy. Then came the daunting list of economic and technical challenges. It seemed as if plans for the hydrogen economy might never make it off the drawing board. But with a number of research programmes showing promising results, hydrogen

When T. Boone Pickens, the legendary oilman, began campaigning for wind energy in July, even Congress took notice.

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.

Chinese officials knew for weeks about sales of chemical-tainted milk powder that has killed two infants and sickened 1,253, but did not act until the New Zealand government pressed Beijing, New Zealand's prime minister said yesterday.

Despite the economic downturn and rising prices, global energy demand continues to rise; so do carbon emissions.

For nearly two years the Opec oil cartel has watched oil prices rise with a mixture of delight and foreboding.

The Bush administration is beginning a race against time to win congressional backing for a landmark deal with India after convincing more than 40 other countries to allow international nuclear trade