Carbon dioxide spewed by human activities has made ocean water so acidic that it is eating away at the shells and skeletons of starfish, coral, clams and other sea creatures, scientists said on Thursday. Marine researchers knew that ocean acidification, as it's called, was occurring in deep water far from land. What they called "truly astonishing" was the appearance of this damaging phenomenon on the Pacific North American continental shelf, stretching from Mexico to Canada.

Germany and France are close to an accord on reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from cars that could pave the way for the introduction of European Union-wide limits, a government source said on Thursday. Germany is concerned that planned EU rules which would cap emissions at 120 grammes per km on average from 2012, and introduce fines for non-compliance, will put its luxury automobile industry at a disadvantage.

While most companies are watching soaring oil prices with an eye on rising costs some renewable energy executives are licking their lips at the prospect of "spectacular" growth. Oil sped above $135 to a new record for a third straight day on Thursday. That and new forecasts of a higher floor price has some alternative energy suppliers dreaming of an era of peak oil when global crude output starts to fall.

The Group of Eight environment ministers will open on Saturday a three-day meeting in Kobe on ways to meet Japan's proposal to halve global greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. The ministers will seek G8 cooperation on promoting the "co-benefits approach" to help developing countries achieve economic growth while curbing pollution and waste, Environment Ministry officials said. The ministers will also discuss steps to protect biodiversity and to ensure the efficient use of resources with the "3Rs" approach of reducing waste by promoting reuse and recycling, the officials said.

The government-backed Carbon Trust's contribution to reducing UK carbon dioxide emissions is "pretty small beer" and it can do better, the Committee of Public Accounts said in a report on Tuesday. With a 100 million-pound budget to drive Britain's move to a low carbon economy, the Trust achieved a reduction in emissions of between 1.2 million and two million tonnes between 2006 and 2007.

The time has come to look afresh at the management of the food economy in order to ensure food security---------

AUSTRALIA'S transport sector is caught in a dilemma: it must drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but the means to do that is years away, according to a climate change specialist. Ben Wheaton, a partner in climate change services at PricewaterhouseCoopers, said greenhouse gas emissions from transport were growing at the fastest rate in the country, faster even than agriculture. Australian Greenhouse Office figures show that transport constitutes 13.5% of Australia's greenhouse gas emissions.

International laws: Even as 1987 Montreal Protocol laid down rules to banish ozone depleting substances (ODS), several of the substitutes that came into use were GHGs. These were covered under the Climate Change Convention. The Kyoto Protocol included six GHGs and committed developed countries to mandatory emission reduction targets of these gases.