BERLIN: The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, Tuesday announced an ambitious plan to reduce greenhouse emissions by up to 40 percent by 2020, an initiative welcomed by environmentalists but harshly criticized by the energy industry, a powerful lobby.

Merkel also ruled out any change to the government's nuclear policy before the next election, scheduled for 2009, that calls for the industry to be phased out in the next 14 years. As part of the emissions-cutting plan, Merkel said she intended to require energy producers to increase efficiency by 3 percent each year and improve conservation.  read more »

Tackling global warming need not cost the Earth, a panel of UN scientists said today.

In the third in a series of reports, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said that keeping the rise in temperatures to within 2C would cost only 0.12 per cent of annual gross domestic product if governments exploited new technologies to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

“It’s a low premium to pay to reduce the risk of major climate damage,” Bill Hare, a Greenpeace adviser who co-authored the report, told Reuters news agency after the culmination of marathon negotiations which ran over their four-day schedule.

“If we continue to do what we are doing now, we are in deep trouble,” added Ogunlade Davidson, co-chair of the IPCC, which includes experts from some 120 nations.  read more »