BRUSSELS/LONDON (Reuters) – China, the world’s biggest carbon emitter, could nudge the United States into more action on climate change, rescuing the latest round of global talks and improving its international reputation.

Expectations remain extremely low that a new global deal can emerge from a summit later this month in Durban, South Africa.

BRUSSELS/LONDON (Reuters) – China, the world’s biggest carbon emitter, could nudge the United States into more action on climate change, rescuing the latest round of global talks and improving its international reputation.

Expectations remain extremely low that a new global deal can emerge from a summit later this month in Durban, South Africa.

BRUSSELS/STRASBOURG (Reuters) – European politicians are expected to vote through a resolution on Wednesday that nudges higher the bloc’s ambitions to deepen its carbon reduction, ahead of climate change talks this month in Durban, a European Parliament source said.

The European Union laid out its negotiating stance ahead of the Durban conference at a meeting of its Environment Council in October. Ministers said then the bloc would commit to a new phase of the Kyoto climate change pact on condition the big emitters gave a firm pledge to join in.

BRUSSELS, Nov 10 (Reuters) – European politicians plan
next week to revive debate on raising the target to cut the EU’s
carbon emissions as the bloc readies to take a leading role in
climate change talks in Durban later this month.

Earlier this year, Poland, holder of the European Union’s
rotating presidency, blocked an attempt to move up from the
existing target of a 20 percent cut in carbon emissions by 2020
to a 25 percent target.

BRUSSELS, Nov 10 (Reuters)

Transport pollution fell for a second year in 2009 in
European countries as recession cut demand, clearing the way for
a social shift from the assumption car ownership is almost a
necessity, the head of the European Environment Agency said.

Published on Thursday, the latest report from the EEA, an
arm of the European Union, found emissions of greenhouse gases
and other pollutants from transport had fallen.

BRUSSELS/LONDON (Reuters) – Representatives of nearly 200 nations will assemble at the end of November in Durban, South Africa, for their annual summit on climate change.

Following the failure of talks in Copenhagen in 2009 and Cancun in 2010 to agree a successor to the Kyoto Protocol — the only global accord on tackling climate change — diplomats and non-governmental organizations have been managing expectations for the Durban summit.

BRUSSELS, Nov 7 (Reuters) – European Union nations must
nearly double investment in grid building in the decade after
2020 if they are to get on the path to carbon-free electricity
by the middle of the century, the European Climate Foundation
(ECF) think-tank said on Monday.

The European Commission raised the goal of virtually
emissions-free electricity in its 2050 road map towards a low
carbon economy, published earlier this year.

By Allison Martell and Barbara Lewis

(Reuters) – The United Nations body responsible for civil aviation weighed in against the European Union’s emissions trading scheme on Wednesday, increasing pressure on the EU to back down in what threatens to become a serious trade dispute.

After months of rhetoric on both sides, the U.N.’s International Civil Aviation Organization adopted a working paper from the United States, China and two dozen other nations urging the EU not to include non-EU carriers in its plan. The ICAO said the paper had been adopted by “a clear majority,” although European countries had expressed strong reservations.

By Tim Hepher and Barbara Lewis

(Reuters) – Pressure mounted on the European Union on Wednesday to back down over charges for jetliner pollution as a United Nations body was urged to weigh in and help prevent a carbon trade war.

The aviation industry called for urgent action to prevent disruption to trade and tourism links as a result of EU plans to make airlines join a cap-and-trade scheme to curb emissions, which has sparked tit-for-tat legislation in the U.S. Congress.

Nov 2 (Reuters) – Pressure mounted on the European Union on
Wednesday to back down over charges for jetliner pollution as a
United Nations body was urged to weigh in and help prevent a
carbon trade war.

The aviation industry called for urgent action to prevent
disruption to trade and tourism links as a result of EU plans to
make airlines join a cap-and-trade scheme to curb emissions,
which has sparked tit-for-tat legislation in the U.S. Congress.