The brokering of deals between international carbon trading brokers and Indian government bodies to reduce energy consumption and earn carbon credits has gained momentum in recent weeks. Not many people noticed the surprise, albeit non-political, move sprung by Mayawati's Uttar Pradesh government late last month through its electricity body, Uttar Pradesh Power Corporation (UPPCL).

Watchdog groups often single out the Four Corners plant in New Mexico, which burns coal, as an egregious polluter. The discussions have often been tense. Pinned on a wall, a large handmade poster with Rolling Stones lyrics reminds everyone, "You can't always get what you want.'

UN-led climate talks kick off on Monday in Germany with experts trying to forge a global warming pact facing a new challenge from critics who say climate change measures are partly to blame for higher food and energy prices. The meeting is the second of eight which aim to secure a global climate deal by the end of next year, to come into force after the first round of the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012. The Bonn talks focus on the "toolkit" of steps which can curb rising emissions of greenhouse gas such as carbon dioxide, which scientists say risk catastrophic climate change.

- A bill going to the US Senate next week seeking deep cuts in US greenhouse gases by 2050 is a "first step" but not enough to avert damaging climate change, the head of the UN Climate Panel said on Friday. Rajendra Pachauri also said that even tougher plans by some other developed nations to rein in emissions were insufficient to head off some projected impacts of global warming, ranging from more heatwaves and droughts to rising seas.

UN-led climate talks kick off on Monday in Germany with experts trying to forge a global warming pact facing a new challenge from critics who say climate change measures are partly to blame for higher food and energy prices. The meeting is the second of eight which aim to secure a global climate deal by the end of next year, to come into force after the first round of the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012. The Bonn talks focus on the "toolkit" of steps which can curb rising emissions of greenhouse gas such as carbon dioxide, which scientists say risk catastrophic climate change.

A bill going to the US Senate next week seeking deep cuts in US greenhouse gases by 2050 is a "first step" but not enough to avert damaging climate change, the head of the UN Climate Panel said on Friday. Rajendra Pachauri also said that even tougher plans by some other developed nations to rein in emissions were insufficient to head off some projected impacts of global warming, ranging from more heatwaves and droughts to rising seas.

The high aspirations that the Indian green energy-based companies had nurtured for generating additional resources through carbon trading have begun to fade. Their Chinese counterparts have out-smarted them by wooing away customers, largely from the European Union (EU), and forcing them to search for new buyers and even opt for lower prices. Though India, on paper, is still the second largest seller of carbon credits, its market share, reckoned in 2007 at an abysmal 6 per cent, looks insignificant when compared with the 73 per cent market share enjoyed by China.

In the face of skyrocketing petrol prices, the New Zealand government has said that it would delay the introduction of a new petrol rates under the emissions trading scheme (ets) for two years.