PARIS, Sept 26, 2008 (AFP) - China has leapfrogged the United States as the world's biggest carbon emitter and India is heading for third place, scientists said on Friday in a report that warned global greenhouse-gas levels were scaling record peaks.

BRUSSELS, Sept 25, 2008 (AFP) - An EU environment panel resisted Thursday pressure from Europe's powerful car-making industry to water down plans to force automakers to slash carbon dioxide emissions.

PARIS, Sept 26, 2008 (AFP) - China has leapfrogged the United States as the world's biggest carbon emitter and India is heading for third place, scientists said on Friday in a report that warned global greenhouse-gas levels were scaling record peaks.

An EU environment panel resisted pressure on Thursday from Europe's
powerful car-making industry to water down plans to force automakers to
slash carbon dioxide emissions.

SPREMBERG, September 9, 2008 (AFP) - One of Europe's biggest power firms inaugurated a prototype coal-fired power station on Tuesday it says is almost emissions-free but environmentalists were less than impressed.

SCHWARZE PUMPE, September 9, 2008 (AFP) - One of Europe's biggest power firms inaugurated a prototype coal-fired power station on Tuesday it says is almost emissions-free but environmentalists were unimpressed.

BERLIN, September 9, 2008 (AFP) - One of Europe's biggest power companies inaugurates on Tuesday a pilot project using a technology presented as a huge potential breakthrough in the fight against climate change.

But green campaigners have denounced the project as a cosmetic operation that does not really address the problem of global warming.

SYDNEY, September 5, 2008 (AFP) - Australia's chief climate advisor Friday urged a 10 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 but conceded this may not save the country's natural assets such as the Great Barrier Reef.

BRUSSELS, August 26, 2008 (AFP) - Car makers are not doing enough to meet proposed EU targets for cutting carbon dioxide emissions, according to a report Tuesday, with some German and Japanese brands facing the biggest challenge to make the grade.

The European Commission wants all carmakers to reduce average emissions to 120 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometre (0.6 miles) by 2012.

SEOUL, August 25, 2008 (AFP) - South Korea on Monday announced plans for a discount scheme to encourage citizens to buy more energy-efficient products.

Consumers who buy such products will receive carbon points that can be used to pay utilities, transport and other bills or to buy other appliances, the Ministry of Knowledge Economy said.

LOS ANGELES, July 31, 2008 (AFP) - California said Thursday it planned to sue the US government for failing to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from ships, aircraft, construction and agricultural equipment.

FRANKFURT, July 25, 2008 (AFP) - The German industrial group MAN has won two big contracts to supply 635 buses which run on natural gas to Turkey and the Netherlands, MAN said on Friday.

The value of the two contracts was not specified, but the German firm put it in a range of 100 million to 999 million euros (157 million-1.57 billion dollars).

SYDNEY, July 16, 2008 (AFP) - The Australian government announced plans Wednesday for a carbon emissions trading scheme by 2010 that it described as the biggest economic reform for a generation.

PARIS, July 9, 2008 (AFP) - Oil prices are too high and threaten the global economy but also open the way to huge energy and pollution savings by spurring new technologies and policies, the IEA said on Wednesday.

PARIS, July 9, 2008 (AFP) - Oil prices are too high, threaten the global economy and the welfare of millions of people but also open the way to huge energy and pollution gains, the IEA said on Wednesday.

PARIS, July 9, 2008 (AFP) - The Group of Eight summit statement on climate change is the latest in a series of declarations on tackling the carbon emissions which stoke global warming.

Following is a chronology of these commitments:

+ 1992: Rio Earth Summit sets up a global arena, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

GENEVA, July 8, 2008 (AFP) - Aviation industry association IATA on Tuesday slammed the European Parliament's move to force airlines to cap their greenhouse gas emisisons from 2012 and to pay for some of their pollution.

BERLIN, July 8, 2008 (AFP) - The dramatic rise in dangerous greenhouse gases in the atmosphere may be troubling scientists and world leaders but it could prove to be a boon for plants, German researchers said Tuesday.

GENEVA, July 4, 2008 (AFP) - A plan by the European Union to impose a carbon dioxide emissions quota for all airlines flying into and out of the bloc could spark trade wars, aviation industry officials warned.

GENEVA, July 4, 2008 (AFP) - A plan by the European Union to impose a carbon dioxide emissions quota for all airlines flying into and out of the bloc could spark trade wars, aviation industry officials warned.

STRAUBING, June 9, 2008 (AFP) - France and Germany reached an agreement Monday that ends their months-long dispute over EU-wide plans to reduce car emissions, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said.

STRAUBING, June 9, 2008 (AFP) - Germany and France reached an agreement Monday that ends their months-long dispute over EU-wide plans to reduce car emissions, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said.

BERLIN, June 6, 2008 (AFP) - Germany and France are still at odds over EU-wide plans to reduce car emissions and will not sign an agreement at a bilateral summit next week, a German government spokesman said Friday.

PARIS, June 1, 2008 (AFP) - After slumping to prices that had made it a near-laughing stock, the European Union's carbon market, the Emissions Trading System (ETS), has been given a useful boost by, of all things, oil.

BRDO PRI KRANJU, Slovenia, May 5, 2008 (AFP) - Europe's truckers would have to pay for the pollution, traffic jams and noise they cause if the European Commission gets its way.

BRUSSELS, April 23, 2008 (AFP) - Belgium's Brussels Airlines announced plans on Wednesday to slow down fractionally its flights in an effort to cut fuel costs and reduce emissions of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming.

BERLIN, April 23, 2008 (AFP) - France and Germany are close to an agreement on reducing carbon dioxide emissions from cars, as part of broader EU goals to cut down on greenhouse gases, according to a German government source.

'On many principles we are quite close,' the government source told journalists in Berlin.

FRANKFURT, April 22, 2008 (AFP) - The modest VW Polo could enable German luxury sports car maker Porsche to meet European Union CO2 emissions targets, the EU industry commissioner said in an interview released on Tuesday.

GENEVA, April 22, 2008 (AFP) - Leading forces in the air transportation industry un dertook to adopt several strategies against pollution in a campaign against global warming, signed here on Tuesday.

GENEVA, April 22, 2008 (AFP) - The head of the international airline body IATA, Giovanni Bisignani urged European governments on Monday to work towards a single European airspace to raise efficiency and reduce carbon emissions.

Bisignani asked governments to move beyond politics and economic measures.

FRANKFURT, March 31, 2008 (AFP) - France and Germany are close to resolving their dispute over EU auto emissions targets that could see a softening of the proposed regulations, a German newspaper report said on Monday.

'The talks are making progress,' business daily Handelsblatt cited a source close to the talks as saying. 'A deal should be possible by the end of April.'

PRAGUE, March 5, 2008 (AFP) - The Czech government on Wednesday urged the European Union to slowly phase in a scheme to set up a market in greenhouse gas emission quotas, citing the danger of a sharp rise in power prices.

FRANKFURT, Jan 31, 2008 (AFP) - The second biggest German energy company, RWE, has cancelled a proposed coal-powered electricity plant owing to EU plans to make companies pay for the right to pollute, a press report said Thursday.

'We are certainly ready to make investments,' RWE boss Ulrich Jobs told the Financial Times Deutschland.

PARIS, Jan 22, 2008 (AFP) - French greenhouse gas emissions fell sharply in 2006, helped by a warmer fall, leaving the country well on course to meet its goals under the UN's Kyoto Protocol, France's ecology minister said Tuesday.

BRUSSELS, Jan 20, 2008 (AFP) - EU plans to make companies pay for the right to pollute have come under fierce fire from governments and industry, warning they could force business and jobs to leave Europe.

As part of a broad strategy for fighting climate change, the European Commission is to unveil plans on Wednesday to make companies pay for tradeable carbon emissions quotas.

BRUSSELS, Jan 18, 2008 (AFP) - The European Commission has criticised EU proposals to boost the use of biofuels in transport, concluding that their costs outweigh the benefits, according to an internal document made available to AFP Friday.