Reuters: Toyota Motor Corp on Friday detailed plans to study US consumer demand for a version of its hot-selling Prius hybrid that could be recharged at a standard outlet and run on electric power only. A senior Toyota executive declined to say when a plug-in Prius would be launched or whether it could beat rival General Motors Corp to market with a technology seen as capable of slashing fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. Bob Carter, who heads the Toyota brand in the …

Reuters: German carbon project developer Ecolutions, which aims for a stock listing in December, wants to invest the proceeds from its flotation in carbon-cutting projects in China and India, it said. "The funds we raise will go completely into our product pipeline and into the development of climate protection projects," Chief Executive Ralf Jungebloed told a news conference in Frankfurt on Monday. Ecolutions aims to raise up to 48 million euros ($70.05 million) by selling up …

Reuters: With prehistoric Antarctic ice sheets melting beneath his feet, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called for urgent political action to tackle global warming. The Antarctic Peninsula has warmed faster than anywhere else on Earth in the last 50 years, making the continent a fitting destination for Ban, who has made climate change a priority since he took office earlier this year. "I need a political answer. This is an emergency and for emergency situations we need emergency …

Bloomberg: American officials are planning to back a new United Nations document that says governments and businesses will have to spend billions of dollars a year to reduce global warming and adapt to its effects. The report will be discussed this week at a meeting of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, the group of scientists producing the most detailed study yet of global warming. The group’s recommendation will guide talks in Bali, Indonesia next month of …

Reuters: Singapore aims to expand its energy industry to be worth S$34 billion ($24 billion)by 2015, from S$20 billion now, by growing its oil refining, trading and renewable energy sectors, the government said on Monday. "There are tremendous opportunities in the energy industry. Besides growing our oil refining and energy trading sector, we are also pursuing growth opportunities in clean energy," said Lim Hng Kiang, Singapore’s Minister for Trade and Industry, at an electricity …

Reuters: The rich caused the problem and must therefore pay the price of fixing the global climate change crisis, a new report said on Monday. Christian Aid, an agency of British and Irish churches, said industrialised nations were historically responsible and therefore morally liable to foot the multi-billion dollar cost of tackling the problem of man-made emissions of carbon gases. "Nations that have grown rich in part by polluting without facing the costs of doing so must now …

Reuters: US Republican senators on Thursday urged a Democratic-led Senate committee to slow its work on a bill to cap climate-warming carbon emissions, arguing that debate is being rushed. "Climate change is a serious and complex issue that deserves our full attention," Sen. George Voinovich said at an environment committee hearing. "So I’m asking, could you slow it down?" Voinovich, an Ohio Republican, acknowledged the desire to get a law passed quickly, but said, …

Agence France-Presse: The Nobel-winning panel of world climate experts gathered here Monday to hammer out a key report as a top UN official warned that political failure to fix global warming would be "criminally irresponsible." "The effects of climate change are being felt already," Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), said. "Climate change will hit hardest the poorest and most vulnerable countries. Its overall effect, …

Deutsche Presse-Agentur: Europe must take the lead in cutting environmentally harmful greenhouse gas emissions, but developing giants such as China and India must also do their bit, the European Union’s top official said Monday at the start of the 2007 World Energy Congress. EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso made the appeal during a keynote speech at the Rome gathering organized by the World Energy Council, a United Nations-accredited non-governmental organization present in over 90 countries. …

Telegraph (UK): Almost a third of the world’s species will face extinction if greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, a United Nations report will say this week. A draft copy of the report by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) also warns that if temperatures rise by more than 2C now expected before 2050 20 per cent of the world’s population will face a great risk of drought. With that level of temperature rise, other parts of the world will face increased flood risk …