The Chinese government is preparing to charge emission fees on cars and is currently discussing this policy, according to Li Zuojun, deputy director of Resources and Environment Institute under the Development Research Center of the State Council.
Representatives from at least 13 companies gathered in Beijing recently to sign an agreement to co-operate with governmental agencies and research institutes for the promotion of biodiversity in China.
The European Commission (EU) announced on Thursday that it had struck an agreement with China to co-operate more closely on cutting carbon emissions through various project including the development of Chinese emissions trading schemes, according to Reuters.
The Vietnam government has updated parts of its rural industrial promotion resolutions to include cleaner and more environmentally-friendly guidelines. The original plan pushed rural production jobs primarily in craft products and was extended to 272 villages.
About 800 companies in China’s booming southern city of Shenzhen will be issued carbon quotas and face penalties for exceeding emissions targets from next year.
The city, which borders Hong Kong in the Guangdong province and was once home to the majority of the Pearl River Delta’s manufacturing operations, is one of seven carbon trading test zones appointed by the central government in October.
China’s State Council announced yesterday that it plans to promote a “National Low-Carbon Day” beginning next year in a bid to cut carbon emissions in the world’s second largest economy.
The Korea Institute of Energy Research claims to have developed a new carbon dioxide capture technology which is “the most energy-efficient among currently available methods”.
Indonesia seems to be responding to Norway’s urging for it to stop “backtracking on its own policies to protect tropical forests,” and up to USD1 billion in aid promised by Oslo in exchange for Indonesia implementing the two-year moratorium hinged on proof of slower rates of forest clearance.
The annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Leaders' Meeting this weekend in the Far Eastern Russian city of Vladivostok has put drawing up a list of environmentally friendly goods on its agenda, according to a report in the China Daily.
China is researching the foundation of a national carbon-trading market before linking with other countries' carbon trading schemes, a top climate change official was quoted by the China Daily.
The United States, Australia, Japan and the European Union are all discussing building a sub-regional or regional carbon market with China, said Xie Zhenhua, vice-chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission, but the country is holding off while it gets its own ducks in a row.
Vietnam has been playing host to delegates from 150 countries to discuss food security and develop agricultural policies to mitigate climate change.
“We are facing unprecedented challenges in the context of over-exploitation of natural resources, increased negative impacts of drought, flooding, salinity, a rising sea level and other environmental consequences that are directly caused by humans,” Cao Duc Phat, Vietnam's Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development told the opening plenary session of the 2nd Global Conference on Agriculture, Food Security and Climate Change
A somewhat contrarian piece of research suggests agriculture in Asia could benefit from climate change. Following numerous doom-laden reports on the effects of extreme weather conditions on populations and economies in the region, scientists from the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) have predicted increased rainfall and temperature due to climate change could bring benefits to south-east Asian agriculture.
This contradicts the more common expectations that a warmer planet will reduce agricultural productivity in the region.
The lack of rains in large, monsoon-dependent, agricultural areas of South Asia has compounded concerns expressed in a recent report about an impending global water crisis and its detrimental impact on agriculture.
A Shanghai official has mounted a robust defense against claims made in new research, A flood vulnerability index for coastal cities and its use in assessing climate change impacts, published in the journal Natural Hazards, which ranked the Chinese city as being most at risk.
A new study, using a broad range of criteria and data, suggests Shanghai is the world's most vulnerable major city to flooding. In spite of gleaming skyscrapers and state-of-the-art mass transit systems, China's most flamboyant city surpasses other Asian coastal conurbations as being the most at risk from the rising sea levels driven by changing climate.
The new research, A flood vulnerability index for coastal cities and its use in assessing climate change impacts, published in the journal, Natural Hazards, looks not just at cities’ physical characteristics but also at their socio-economic and institutional systems, to assess the impact of flooding.
Shanghai has become the first city in China to launch a pilot carbon emission rights trading scheme, marking a significant milestone in the country’s efforts to control and ultimately reduce its greenhouse gas emissions.
About 200 major local polluters, including industrial companies whose annual carbon dioxide emissions reach 20,000 tonnes and non-industrial enterprises whose annual emissions total 10,000 tonnes, will take part in the trading, the city government said in a statement.
Marine species are under threat from increased levels of ultraviolet B (UVB) radiation as a result of damage to the ozone layer according to a new study.
India’s Ministry of Environment & Forests and the Ministry of Urban Development have launched a project called “Promoting Low Carbon Transport in India” as the first-ever transportation project to be financed by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
The first carbon capture and storage (CCS) project in China has sequestered 40,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide, according to Shenhua Group Corporation, the country’s leading coal energy company.
Located in China’s Inner Mongolia autonomous region the CCS system has been operating for 15 months taking carbon dioxide from a Shenhua’s Direct Coal Liquefaction Megaton commercialized demonstration plant, which produces diesel and naphtha from coal.
A comprehensive new study has been published by Australia’s new Bureau of Resources and Energy Economics (BREE), providing “the best available and most up-to-date cost estimates” for 40 utility-scale electricity generation technologies between now and 2050, albeit under Australian conditions.
This report by the World Bank spells out what the world would be like if it warmed by 4 degrees Celsius, which is what scientists are nearly unanimously predicting by the end of the century, without serious policy changes.
Companies in Asia reveal expectations that regulations that could lead to rising costs for reporting and reducing GHG emissions will also be the main sources of climate-related business opportunities.
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