Make-or-break for an idea that is meant to help the poor grow and be green Reuters It's not just the market that's drying up

Japan is debating whether to set a target for cutting its greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, but reaching a conclusion before the G8 in July summit is not a "diplomatic imperative", a foreign ministry official said. Japanese newspaper reports earlier this month said Japan, the world's fifth-largest emitter of greenhouse gases that cause global warming, would announce in June a target of cutting its emissions by 60 to 80 percent to boost its leadership credentials as host of the Group of Eight summit in July.

AT last, the Conference of Parties (COP 13) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) in Bali, Indonesia, has agreed upon the future of the Reduced Emissions from Deforestation in Developing countries (REDD) as a carbon reduction tool in the post-Kyoto protocol regime that will come into action after 2012.

Unable to cut down on its coal usage, it seems that the West is looking to burry its co2 emissions underground. The British government, for example, has become zealous about the carbon capture and

Carbon capture and storage, as is evident from its appellation, has three stages. At the first stage, CO2 is separated from other components of emissions like water vapour, nitrous oxide and

the European Union (eu) is mulling a "controversial' greenhouse gas reduction plan, through which it will impose a carbon tax on goods imported from countries with no emission curbs under the

PORTLAND, Oregon: Senator John McCain sought to distance himself from President George W. Bush this week as he called for a mandatory limit on greenhouse gas emissions in the United States to combat climate change. McCain, in a speech on Monday at a wind power company, also pledged to work with the European Union to diplomatically engage China and India, two of the world's biggest polluters, if the nations refuse to participate in an international agreement to slow global warming.

Norway's emissions of greenhouse gases rose almost 3 percent in 2007 to a record high, boosted by the opening of a liquefied natural gas plant by state-controlled StatoilHydro, Statistics Norway said on Tuesday. Emissions by the world's number five oil exporter climbed to the equivalent of 55.0 million tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2007 from 53.5 million in 2006 and were 11 percent above 1990 levels, the benchmark for the UN's Kyoto Protocol on global warming.

Australia will spend A$3.8 billion ($3.5 billion) to fight climate change, including A$200 million to rescue the Great Barrier Reef, as part of a four-year plan outlined in the government's budget on Tuesday. More than A$1 billion would be spent to improve renewable technologies like solar, wind and geothermal energy over six years, as well as clean-up heavy-polluting coal power, centre-left Labour said in its first budget since it last held power in 1995.

A campaign to plant trees worldwide set a goal on Tuesday of seven billion by late 2009, just over one for each person on the planet, to help protect the environment and slow climate change. The UN Environment Programme (UNEP), an organiser of the tree planting drive begun in late 2006 with an initial goal of a billion by the end of 2007, said governments, companies and individuals had already pushed the total above 2 billion.