The Southern Ocean has proved more resilient to global warming than previously thought and remains a major store of mankind's planet-warming carbon dioxide, a study has found.

Oceans absorb a large portion of the extra CO2 released by mankind through burning fossil fuels or deforestation, acting as a brake on climate change, and the Southern Ocean is the largest of these "carbon sinks".

Rich nations should make the first cuts in greenhouse gases while developing countries carry on business as usual for the time being, according to a plan set out on Monday by a Harvard University project.

This is one of four proposals by the American university's Belfer Centre for Science and International Affairs to negotiators who meet for UN climate talks next week in Poland.

Klaus Schwab, now 70 years old, is the brain behind the 37-year-old World Economic Forum. Critics say it is little more than a talk-shop that produces few results. Yet, the delegates of the WEF

Europe's four big auto making nations have reached agreement on cutting greenhouse gas emissions from cars after Italy joined a deal between Britain, France and Germany, government sources in Rome and Berlin said.

Australian mining firms, hit by high fuel costs and falling commodity prices, could soon swap their diesel generators for 24-hour, solar-power systems, the head of a private renewable power firm said on Thursday.

Carbon dioxide emissions and their associated warming could linger for millennia, according to some climate scientists. Mason Inman looks at why the fallout from burning fossil fuels could last far longer than expected.

By Shankar Sharma

A comparison with the environmental disaster that is facing China is worth making.

The British government sold 4 million permits in the country's first auction of European Union carbon emissions allowances but held that revenues would not necessarily be used to fight climate change.

The permits, called EU Allowances (EUAs), were sold on Wednesday to industry at 16.15 euros a tonne, raising 64.6 million euros ($81.55 million) for the British Treasury.

The British government will take hefty revenues from its first carbon emissions permit auction on Wednesday rather than earmark the money for consumers or the climate it aims to protect, analysts and lobby groups said.

Europe's first auction of carbon dioxide permits took place yesterday, with the UK government reaping about

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