The author highlights the eternal dilemma between energy and coal-powered growth and environment. In view of the continued dependence of the Indian economy on coal-based energy in the years to come, it has serious implications for the environment. The importance of using Clean Coal Technologies including reneawables, amongst other measures, has been brought out.

One concrete goal adopted by some policy-makers is to reduce the risks associated with climate change by preventing the mean global temperature from rising by more than 2°C above preindustrial levels.

Today coal mining causes ecosystem damage, soil erosion, dust and air pollution from surface activities, landscape disruption from surface mining, interruption of streams and aquifers with impacts on water availability, acidified water, subsidence and land instability from underground mining, and emissions of methane and other greenhouse gases.

Driven by efforts to curb fossil-fuel use and concerns about the security of energy supplies, the number of applications for renewable-energy patents is booming. But the patents are scattered across many databases, in different formats that are not readily searchable, leading to a lack of clarity over who owns specific energy-technology patents, and in which regions.

THE doomsdayers and the anti-trade people will disagree. However, it is clear that trade negotiations under the WTO over the last decade and a half have been fairly successful. The success lies in four principles. One, acceptance by countries that multilateralism is important so that member countries by and large accept their bound tariffs as their minimum commitments.

The key challenges faced by the coal-power sector in India

FOR many left-wingers, the credit crunch was proof that markets do not always know best. The near-collapse of the world

Up to six "clean coal" power stations are set to be built across the European Union after Brussels gave its backing to

Amid a growing split in the business community over climate policy, Pacific Gas and Electric, a major California utility, is withdrawing from the United States Chamber of Commerce, citing

Britain's first clean coal plant will miss a government deadline and its first new nuclear plant will not come on line before 2020, reflecting global climate policy uncertainty, a utility chief said on Thursday.

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