At least $35 billion to $40 billion of annual investments will be required to link all people in the world with modern forms of energy by 2030, a goal that must be reached while reducing heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions, a U.N. advisory group recommended yesterday Fifteen billion dollars of this should be in the form of annual grants donated by rich nations to expand electricity access to the poor. And the world should not only achieve universal access to energy by 2030, but it should do so while increasing efficiency by 40 percent overall, or 2.5 percent per year. Such steps will be necessary to not only reduce extreme poverty but also combat climate change..

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Polls show that tackling climate change is a low priority for the American public. Indeed, a Yale poll found that only 12 percent of Americans were “very worried” about global warming. In the last few days, the Environmental Protection Agency seems to have initiated a public campaign to make clear where it, and the science, stand, stating that the rise in greenhouse gases is a serious problem to be confronted. On Monday night, the E.P.A. administrator, Lisa Jackson, made the point as a guest on “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart.” And on Tuesday, the agency released an 80-page glossy report called “Climate Change Indicators in the United States” to help Americans make sense of climate change data.

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California's climate change law is the most aggressive in the United States and it faces challenges this election year. Some of the same forces that may stall federal climate legislation, including oil companies and businesses concerned by higher energy prices, are now taking aim at California's landmark 2006 law. Known as AB 32, the law includes vehicle and fuel standards, a market for pollution trade (still in the works), as well as "green" building and planning policies.

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he European Commission has approved Bulgaria's long-delayed 2008-2012 carbon plan, allowing industries to start trading in carbon credits, the ministry of environment and water said Saturday. "Bulgaria was given the greenlight to join the EU trade in carbon emissions permits," the ministry said in a statement. After a delay of three years, Bulgaria sent its revised CO2 plan to Brussels last December, allocating carbon emissions permits to some 132 industrial installations in the country, which they can now trade with other businesses.

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As the world struggles to break a deadlock in climate change negotiations, South Africa and three other influential developing nations are gathering for a strategy session to ensure poor countries are heard. Brazil, South Africa, India and China began to coalesce as a bloc at U.N. climate talks in December in Copenhagen. The group, known as BASIC, plans a high-level meeting Sunday and Monday in Cape Town. The size of their economies means India and China can't be ignored, and South Africa and Brazil are good partners because of the standing they enjoy in their respective regions.

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Kyoto binds about 40 rich nations to cut emissions by 2008-12 and developing countries want a tougher second commitment period. That demand is opposed by many developed nations that want to jettison Kyoto to include emerging markets like India and China. Next week's meeting of the environment ministers of Brazil, South Africa, India and China - the so-called BASIC nations - will look at ways to bridge a trust deficit with rich nations, according to its agenda, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters. "How long will the Kyoto Protocol survive? Could we envisage a shorter second commitment period designed solely to secure carbon markets?" said the agenda of the meeting to be held in South Africa on April 25-26.

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The phenomenon known as "spring creep" has put various species of U.S. wildlife out of balance with their traditional habitats, from the rabbit-like American pika in the West to the roses and lilies in New England, the environmental experts said in a telephone news briefing. "The losers tend to be our native plant species," said Charles Davis of Harvard University, who studied plant changes in Concord, Massachusetts, where American conservationist and philosopher Henry David Thoreau lived a century and a half ago. "Climate change is not affecting species uniformly," Davis said. "Certain groups are hit harder than others, and those species that are not able to respond to climate change ... are being hit the hardest.

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With the 2010 G8 summit just over two months away, civil society groups from around the world spent Friday meeting with G8 representatives in Vancouver. Members from more than 60 non-governmental organizations, health, and labour groups met with G8 "sherpas," or top civil servants who advise their respective leaders. Anti-poverty and climate-change advocates urged leaders to come to the June 25-27 summit in Huntsville, Ont., with meaningful ideas on how to combat poverty and global warming. Glenn Farred, a spokesman for South Africa's Global Campaign Against Poverty, said it's critical for the G8 to get on track with the financial commitments it has long since made. The Group of Eight countries agreed in 2005 at the Gleneagles summit in Scotland to double their official development assistance by 2010, and dedicate a larger proportion of their aid to Africa. But figures released Thursday by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development show the G8 countries have fallen US$18 billion short on that promise.

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A warming planet makes for longer growing seasons that would produce more allergy-provoking pollen in much of the heavily populated eastern two-thirds of the United States, the National Wildlife Federation and the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America said in their report. The cost of coping with allergies and allergen-driven asthma in the United States is at $32 billion in direct medical costs, lost work days and lower productivity, the report said. "Climate change could allow highly allergenic trees like oaks and hickories to start replacing pines, spruces and firs that generally don't cause allergies, exposing many more people to springtime allergy triggers," said Amanda Staudt, a climate scientist at the wildlife federation. Spring-like conditions are already arriving 14 days earlier than 20 years ago, Staudt said. In the fall, ragweed plants will grow larger and more loaded with pollen over a longer growing season, Staudt said in a telephone interview. There is also evidence that ragweed, the biggest U.S. allergy trigger, grows faster as carbon dioxide increases in the atmosphere.

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Efforts to revive UN climate talks after last December's Copenhagen Summit wrangled Saturday over how to whip the arduous negotiation process towards a post-2012 global treaty. Countries sought a new platform for catalysing the talks under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) banner and fought over whether to establish a single core group of countries that would haggle over major issues and then consult with their fellow nations. Backers said the idea could end the battles that nearly led to catastrophe in Copenhagen, where 120 heads of state and government mustered for what was supposed to be a triumph. "After two years we gave our leaders more than 100 pages of brackets -- (it's) not exactly an endorsement of our working methods," US chief delegate Jonathan Pershing said, referring to the many parentheses denoting disputed text. The European Union (EU), Australia and some developing countries, including Bangladesh and Papua New Guinea, also favoured the contact group, arguing that it could accelerate matters yet not impinge on international consensus. But other countries warned against any innovation that sapped national sovereignty. Bolivian chief delegate Pablo Solon blasted the process as an "anti-democratic" huddle by the select.

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Delegates from 170 nations gathered in Bonn on Thursday for the April 9-11 meeting that will seek to rebuild trust after the December summit disappointed many by failing to agree a binding U.N. deal at the climax of two years of talks. Bonn will decide a programme for meetings in 2010 and air ideas about the non-binding Copenhagen Accord, backed by more than 110 nations including major emitters China, the United States, Russia and India but opposed by some developing states.

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More than 110 countries have signed up to the Copenhagen climate goals, but the pledges are insufficient and the actual legal accord is unlikely to be completed until the end of 2011, two years later than originally envisioned, the top U.N. climate official said Wednesday.

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Reports on the Copenhagen conference have now been published and are available on the UNFCCC website

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The UK yesterday (31 March) attempted to revive global climate talks by offering to extend the Kyoto Protocol beyond 2012. Presenting the UK government's action plan on international climate negotiations, Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband said the UK is willing to sign a new Kyoto Treaty in a unilateral move to breathe life into the UN negotiations, which have been marred with squabbles over the legal form of any final text. "We are determined to unblock the negotiations. We are willing to offer a second agreement under Kyoto, provided there is a separate legal treaty covering all other countries," Miliband is quoted by the Guardian newspaper as saying.

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