LONDON (Reuters) – A new use for carbon dating will aid the production of energy from wood and waste, said a bio-energy group on Thursday after British regulatory approval of the new test.

Carbon dating is commonly used to estimate the age of ancient artifacts, exploiting the fact that a particular type of carbon disappears, or decays, at a fixed rate, so that the amount left behind clocks how much time has passed.

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain will exclude details of support for green energy under power market reform plans it is due to unveil next week, say sources familiar with the statement which may disappoint investors and developers.

The proposals will center around a guaranteed purchase price for low carbon electricity, critically widening existing renewable energy support to include nuclear power.

LONDON (Reuters) – Smoke belching from Asia’s rapidly growing economies is largely responsible for a halt in global warming in the decade after 1998 because of sulphur’s cooling effect, even though greenhouse gas emissions soared, a U.S. study said on Monday.

The paper raised the prospect of more rapid, pent-up climate change when emerging economies eventually crack down on pollution.

LONDON (Reuters) – Growing global demand for more and cleaner water is sapping energy, throwing a focus on efficiency for example in world farming sector trying to feed more people, said a study published in the journal Nature.

Concerns have grown about scarcity of food, water and energy as the world tries to feed an extra 2 billion people by 2050.

LONDON (Reuters) – A European plan to raise funds for clean energy has backfired spectacularly, helping trigger a rout on its carbon trading scheme, and so cutting available green funds and benefiting polluting coal plants.

Additional causes for the latest sell-off included eurozone woes over Greece, and an EU efficiency directive announced this week which could send carbon emissions lower.

LONDON (Reuters) – A widening shale gas revolution is killing the economics of renewable energy, even as falling costs allow wind and solar to overtake fossil fuels in niche areas, say energy executives and analysts.

Solar panel prices are down about 10 percent this year, but chasing a moving target as discovery of cheap shale gas spreads beyond the United States, experts told Reuters energy and climate summit.

BONN/LONDON (Reuters) – More weather disasters and economic recovery could bring a “tipping point” that jolts governments into far tougher action to combat climate change, the U.N. climate chief said on Wednesday.

Christiana Figueres also told Reuters that government efforts so far to combat global warming were nowhere near enough to avert heatwaves, droughts, mudslides and rising sea levels projected by the U.N. panel of climate scientists.

LONDON (Reuters) – A tougher European Union climate target may no longer be realistic after Germany announced plans to phase out low-carbon nuclear power, a group board member at Germany utility E.ON EONGn.De told Reuters on Wednesday.

The European Union has said for years that it will cut carbon emissions faster than now if the rest of the world followed suit under a broad climate deal. [ID:nLDE72D1CL]

LONDON (Reuters) – Oil giant Shell (RDSa.L: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) says that it is working to explain to Canadians that underground carbon storage is safe, following rejection in the Netherlands.

Energy companies want to show they can both burn cheap coal and gas and hit climate targets by trapping carbon emissions and pumping these underground.

BONN, Germany (Reuters) – Negotiations meant to avert dangerous climate change are stuck over future emissions restrictions in wrangling at meetings below the ministerial level, undermining the U.N.-backed process.

The pace of talks has slowed since a two-year campaign for a binding deal ending at a Copenhagen summit in 2009, when world leaders failed to deliver, and acrimony lingers.