Every month six aircraft are added to the Indian airspace. In 2006-07, 60 million people travelled by air in the country

New York City unveiled new fuel emissions standards for the city's 10,000 black taxis on Wednesday that will compel the town car owners to switch to hybrid technology within five years. The move -- part of Mayor Michael Bloomberg's plan to decrease the city's carbon emissions by 30 percent by 2030 -- comes less than a year after Bloomberg announced the city's 13,000 yellow taxi cabs will go hybrid by 2012. Black town cars service mostly corporate clients and are responsible for two percent of the city's transportation related emissions, Bloomberg said. He said the change will cut their emissions by half. Hybrid cars are powered by a gasoline engine combined with an electric motor with batteries that recharge when the car is in motion. (Reporting by Edith Honan, editing by Daniel Trotta and Vicki Allen) REUTERS NEWS SERVICE

Lehman Brothers Inc. has announced it will start trading carbon credits in Japan, becoming the first global investment bank to link the Japanese and European carbon markets. Lehman Brothers has become the first foreign financial firm to open an account in Japan's national registry system for trading in Certified Emission Reductions, the company said. A CER is a carbon credit developed by carbon offset providers that is certified as being equivalent to one ton of carbon dioxide under the mechanism defined by the 1997 Kyoto Protocol to combat global warming. The carbon offset system allows emitters of greenhouse gases to pay another party to undertake to remove an equivalent amount of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Lehman Brothers said its entry into Japan's carbon trading market follows a significant increase in its global reach in the international carbon markets, including China, India and Latin America.

Increased carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere also could worsen air pollution worldwide and lead to the deaths of up to 22,000 people a year, a new study shows. Rising carbon dioxide (CO2) levels from burning fossil fuels have been linked to sea-level changes, snowmelt, disease, heat stress, severe weather, and ocean acidification, but this is the first study to link CO2 rise to pollution. Because carbon dioxide doesn't directly affect respiration, it hasn't been classified as an air pollutant. But the study, led by Mark Jacobson of Stanford University, predicts that as temperatures and water vapor rise because of extra atmospheric CO2, ozone pollution levels also will rise. Using a high-resolution model that correlates pollution levels to human health, Jacobson found that each 1.8-degree rise in temperature could increase yearly air pollution deaths in the USA by about 1,000, which he extrapolated to 22,000 worldwide. Jacobson notes that many of these deaths would likely occur in smoggy urban areas.

Lehman Brothers Inc said Tuesday it will start trading carbon credits in Japan, becoming the first global investment bank to link the Japanese and European carbon markets. Lehman Brothers has become the first foreign financial firm to open an account in Japan's national registry system for trading in Certified Emission Reductions, the company said. A CER is a carbon credit developed by carbon offset providers that is certified as being equivalent to one ton of carbon dioxide under the mechanism defined by the 1997 Kyoto Protocol to combat global warming. The carbon offset scheme allows emitters of greenhouse gases to pay another party to undertake to remove an equivalent amount of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.