SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Australia’s push to impose an economy-wide cost on carbon pollution gives global efforts to price emissions a boost and will help revive struggling U.N. talks on a tougher climate deal.

In Australia’s most sweeping economic reform in decades, the government will tax the nation’s top 500 polluters at A$23 per metric ton of carbon before moving to a market-based emissions trading scheme in 2015.

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Australian climate scientists say they have received death threats, emails with sexual slurs and other insults in a surge of abuse that appears to be a coordinated campaign of intimidation.

The threats have come as the government tries to step up the fight against climate change by trying to win agreement on a deeply unpopular scheme to price carbon emissions, which the political opposition says will cost jobs and raise fuel and power prices.

WELLINGTON/SINGAPORE (Reuters) – From moribund to modestly active, New Zealand’s carbon trading scheme has picked up since the entry of big polluters a year ago but faces a major challenge in how to ramp up pressure on firms to take more steps to cut emissions.

The emissions trading scheme, or ETS, remains the first national scheme outside Europe’s $120 billion a year program.

CANBERRA, June 10 (Reuters) – Charlie Bragg gazes across his
lush fields where fat lambs are grazing, his reservoirs filled
with water, and issues a sigh of relief. Things are normal this
year and that’s a bit unusual of late.

His 7,000-acre farm near the Australian town of Cootamundra
is testament to the plight facing farmers around the globe:
increasingly wilder weather is making food production more
unpredictable. It’s the new normal they must prepare for.

CANBERRA (Reuters) – Charlie Bragg gazes across his lush fields where fat lambs are grazing, his reservoirs filled with water, and issues a sigh of relief. Things are normal this year and that’s a bit unusual of late.

His 7,000-acre farm near the Australian town of Cootamundra is testament to the plight facing farmers around the globe: increasingly wilder weather is making food production more unpredictable. It’s the new normal they must prepare for.

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Indonesian flag carrier Garuda Indonesia (GIAA.JK: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) plans to announce an order of 25 aircraft with a capacity of 180-190 seats each at the Paris Air Show this month, its chief executive said on Tuesday.

The president and chief executive officer, Emirsyah Satar, told Reuters in an interview that the state-owned carrier also plans to announce a deal to buy up to 25 regional jets with fewer than 100 seats each as early as the third quarter.

SINGAPORE, June 7 (Reuters) – The world’s biggest airline
groiuping hit back at the European Union on Tuesday, saying it
had not retreated from its support for emissions trading but
said the bloc’s scheme for aviation was unfair and costly.

From Jan 1 next year, airlines landing in the European
Union’s 27 member states will have to join the bloc’s $120
billion emissions trading scheme, which obliges carriers to pay
for each tonne of carbon dioxide pollution above a fixed cap.

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Global airlines have cut their 2011 profit forecast by more than half to $4 billion as high oil prices and turmoil in Japan, North Africa and the Middle East weigh on the industry’s recovery.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA), which represents most global carriers, disclosed the new forecast on Monday and also warned of a looming trade war if Europe moves ahead with plans to force airlines to join an emissions trading scheme next year. China said it would support legal action.

SINGAPORE, June 6 (Reuters) – It could be the answer for
every weary air traveller, a high-tech screening system that
filters passengers according to risk and scans and “sniffs” them
as they walk through, taking a fraction of the time of a usual
security check.

Customs and immigration could also be combined at the same
screening station, curbing queues and increasing time for that
all-important pre-flight browsing or duty-free shopping.

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Global airlines cut their 2011 profit forecast by more than half to $4 billion on Monday as high oil prices and turmoil in Japan, North Africa and the Middle East weigh on the industry’s recovery.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA), which represents most global carriers, also warned of a looming trade war if Europe moves ahead with plans to force airlines to join an emissions trading scheme next year. China said it would support legal action.