As the European Union regularly meets to discuss current climate change goals and plans for the future, there is a debate arising in regard to the future of emissions trading. As The Guardian reports, many businesses have begun to adhere to EU mandates for energy efficiency, but they also feel they should be rewarded for their efforts and continued pursuit of a greener economy.

A row over the future of the European Union‘s pioneering greenhouse gas trading system is threatening to upset Europe’s bid to win the global clean technology race.

Two powerful European commissioners are at loggerheads over whether to strengthen the emissions trading system, in order to maintain Europe’s leadership on climate change. The row surfaced on Thursday at a conference in Brussels where the president of the European commission, José Manuel Barroso, lauded the EU’s efforts on cutting emissions and called for stronger action in the future.

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It was reported on PharmPro’s website that more ‘climate-friendly’ investments in transport, energy and housing could help prevent significant noncommunicable disease, WHO review finds

Washington, D.C., 14 June 2011 (PAHO/WHO) – Greener investments in transport, housing and household energy policies can help prevent significant cardiovascular and chronic respiratory disease, obesity-related conditions and cancers.

These are among the findings of a new global World Health Organization series that looks systematically, for the first time ever, at the health ‘co-benefits’ of investments in climate change mitigation reviewed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Overall, sustainable development policies in housing, transport, and household energy may benefit health right away – even if the broader climate gains are realized over years or decades.

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Higher temperatures and changing rainfall patterns resulting from global climate change will threaten food production in many parts of the world – especially regions in the tropics already struggling with food security, according to a new report, disclosed by Voice of America.

How climate change affects you depends on more than just how it affects your local weather. It also depends on how much the weather matters to your livelihood, and how well you can cope with the changes.

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Reported by Eco-Business online, natural gas is not the “panacea” to solve climate change that fossil fuel industry lobbyists have been claiming, according to new research from the International Energy Agency (IEA).

Gas is likely to make up about one-quarter of the world’s energy supply by 2035, according to the study, but that would lead the world to a 3.5C temperature rise. At such a level, global warming could run out of control, deserts would take over in southern Africa, Australia and the western US, and sea level rises could engulf small island states.

Nobuo Tanaka, executive director of the IEA, told a press conference in London: “While natural gas is the cleanest fossil fuel, it is still a fossil fuel. Its increased use could muscle out low-carbon fuels such as renewables and nuclear, particularly in the wake of Fukushima. An expansion of gas use alone is no panacea for climate change.”

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According to Bloomberg, the world’s largest cities are taking a huge stand against further environmental damage and global warming through carbon emission mandates and an increase in energy efficiency.

Cities from Johannesburg to Los Angeles are changing street lights, insulating buildings and promoting bicycling to slash carbon emissions as envoys at United Nations talks bicker about binding greenhouse-gas goals.

“While national governments continue their excruciatingly frustrating dialog on climate change, we in the cities are acting,” Portland, Oregon Mayor Sam Adams said in an interview. “It’s sheer common sense. Becoming more efficient with your city’s energy needs means you’re also more economically secure.”

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According to an article in Bloomberg, the European Union announced it is toying with the idea of increasing it’s carbon emission reduction goal previously set for 2020.

The European Union is unlikely to propose a deepening of the bloc’s greenhouse-gas reduction target before the next global climate summit, due to start in November, Polish Environment MinisterAndrzej Kraszewski said.

The EU, which wants to lead the global fight against climate change, is on schedule to meet its binding goal of cutting emissions by 20 percent in 2020 compared with 1990 levels. It has said it’s ready to move to a 30 percent target if other countries follow suit.

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Power Industry News reports that climate change is real, it is here, human activity is causing it, and the longer we wait to start reducing carbon emissions the more difficult and costly those reductions will become, according to the federal government’s Climate Commission.

In ‘The Critical Decade’ report released this week, the Climate Commission, which is headed up by Tim Flannery, outlines that “unless effective action is taken, the global climate may be so irreversibly altered we will struggle to maintain our present way of life.”

It is a view that is yet to be fully adopted across Australian political parties, however.

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Large financial institutions are beginning to realize the potentially catastrophic effects of climate change and are taking preemptive actions to curb the negative environmental impact of many businesses’ carbon emissions. The Economic Times highlights one such financial institution.

Multilateral lending agency Asian Development Bank (ADB) today said it will invest USD 60 million in three venture capital funds targeted at companies combating the impact of climate change and promoting clean energy in India and China .

“Climate change will hit Asia hard in coming decades. Investing in these venture capital funds will help channel finance into innovative and affordable technologies that tackle the challenge of climate change in ways that are suited to developing Asia,” the Director General of the ADB’s private sector operations department, Philip Erquiaga , said in a release.

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Mongabay reports that, according to a new study by Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE) and the UK’s Met Office Hadley Centre,  deforestation and climate change will likely decimate much of the Amazon rainforest.

Climate change and widespread deforestation is expected to cause warmer and drier conditions overall, reducing the resistance of the rainforest ecosystem to natural and human-caused stressors while increasing the frequency of extreme rainfall events and droughts by the end of this century. While climate models show that higher temperatures resulting from global climate change will threaten the resilience of the Amazon, current deforestation is an immediate concern to the rainforest ecosystem and is likely driving regional changes in climate. Augmented by both global and locally-driven climate change, forest degradation is likely to have serious consequences for the region’s inhabitants, the Amazon’s vast diversity of species, and the global carbon budget.

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Business Green reports that the UK will continue plans to build a nuclear power plant after getting the go-ahead from top nuclear officials.

Energy and Climate Change secretary Chris Huhne has reaffirmed that nuclear power will remain a fundamental part of the UK’s energy mix, after the industry was given the all-clear to press ahead with future plants by the Chief Inspector of Nuclear Installations.

Huhne commissioned Dr Mike Weightman to review the UK’s nuclear fleet in the wake of the crisis at Japan’s Fukushima power plant.

The disaster prompted calls from green groups to abandon plans for new nuclear reactors in favour of renewable energy, while surveys suggested that support for the technology had plummeted. Meanwhile, Germany closed seven of its oldest reactors over safety fears.

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There is no more time to waste in the battle against climate change. The Washington Post analyzes the global climate crisis and reasons as to why America doesn’t appear to be doing all it could to stop the rate of carbon emissions. “Climate change is occurring, is very likely caused by human activities, and poses significant risks for a broad range of human and natural systems.”

So says — in response to a request from Congress — the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences, the country’s preeminent institution chartered to provide scientific advice to lawmakers.

In a report titled “America’s Climate Choices,” a panel of scientific and policy experts also concludes that the risks of inaction far outweigh the risks or disadvantages of action. And the most sensible and urgently needed action, the panel says, is to put a rising price on carbon emissions, by means of a tax or cap-and-trade system. That would encourage innovation, research and a gradual shift away from the use of energy sources (oil, gas and coal) that are endangering the world.

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