Chronic pollution in Mexico City, which stains the sky yellow and can trigger government warnings to stay indoors, could be killing off residents’ sense of smell, scientists say.
Tests showed people in Mexico City — a sprawling metropolis crammed with around 20 million people and 4 million cars — struggled to sniff out everyday odors like coffee and orange juice compared to residents of a nearby town.
ERDOS, China (Reuters) – With oil prices at historic highs, China is moving full steam ahead with a controversial process to turn its vast coal reserves into barrels of oil.
Known as coal-to-liquid (CTL), the process is reviled by environmentalists who say it causes excessive greenhouse gases.
A House of Commons committee suggested last week that the U.K. Parliament create a personal carbon-trading scheme for all citizens of the United Kingdom. It was the strongest statement yet by any government in favor of an individual cap-and-trade system for buying and selling greenhouse gas emissions.
Personal carbon trading would provide a set “carbon emissions allowance” to each citizen and establish a national carbon budget.
U.N.-led climate talks began in Germany on Monday on a global warming pact, facing a challenge from critics who say climate measures are partly to blame for high food and energy prices.
The meeting is the second in a series of eight which aim to secure a global climate deal by the end of next year in Copenhagen, to come into force after the first round of the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012.
A recent boom in Chinese wind power development has surpassed the government’s original target and forced policymakers to set a new goal that might still be too modest.
In 2007, cumulative wind installations in China exceeded 5 gigawatts (GW), the goal originally set for 2010 by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China’s top economic planner. The Commission had set the target in its 2006 mid- and long-term development plan for renewable energy. The plan’s target for 2020 was 30 GW, a level that is now projected to be reached by 2012, eight years ahead of schedule.