The Oil Drum

Saudi Arabia Says Dollar Must Fall 30% Before It Will Revalue

(Bloomberg) -- Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil producer, won't consider abandoning the riyal's peg to the dollar unless the U.S. currency loses almost a third of its value.

"If the composition of our exports and imports change and there's a precipitous decline in the dollar, we'd look at" revaluation, Muhammad al-Jasser, Vice-Governor of the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency, or SAMA, said in an interview in Davos, Switzerland today. Such a drop would have to be about 30 percent, he said.

Venezuela says no need for OPEC to boost output

CARACAS, Jan 23 (Reuters) - Venezuela's energy minister reiterated on Wednesday he does not believe OPEC needs to increase output to tame high oil prices despite pressure for a hike from consumer nations, especially the United States.

The leftist government of anti-U.S. President Hugo Chavez is a price hawk in OPEC and has repeatedly said the export group should agree to keep output capped during a meeting next month.

"We do not think it is necessary. It's not justified. There is enough inventory, enough output," Energy Minister Rafael Ramirez told reporters.

North Dakota legislators mull state oil refinery

NEW YORK (Reuters) - North Dakota legislators are studying building the country's only state-run oil refinery to steady fuel prices and boost demand for locally produced crude.

Sandwiched between Minnesota and Montana along the Canadian border, the snowy farming state is the No. 8 U.S. oil producer thanks to advances which have enabled companies to extract crude oil from the giant Bakken Shale formation.

Is politics invading the oil patch? Rating agency says yes

(AXcess News) New York - In a report on major oil companies released Tuesday, the largest threat to the commercial oil patch appears to be state-owned oil with competitive ranking swinging over to national oil companies, or NOCs, over time as the fight for untapped global resources unfolds.

According to Moody's, major oil companies may have advantages in technology and sufficient capital, but in the long-run its the state-owned oil companies who'll control more of the market simply because those countries will be less likely to permit outside energy developers from moving in on untapped reserves. That could mean politics will play a larger role in major oil companies futures.

Environmental Terrorism and the Price of Oil

As humiliating as it is for the United States to be put in a position where our economy is held hostage to foreign oil producers who can make or break our nation simply by limiting their petroleum production, thus causing the price of oil to skyrocket, it is even more shameful that we have allowed the so-called environmental movement to escape the blame for our predicament.

Clinton visits Arizona, vows to end subsidies for oil companies

LAVEEN, Ariz. (AP) -- Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton on Tuesday vowed to end subsidies for oil companies and said the country needs to be more energy-efficient and less dependent on foreign countries for fuel.

In a speech focusing on the country's slumping economy, the New York senator said America can create jobs by converting to solar and other forms of alternative energy.

The hottest hybrid vehicles for 2008

Hybrids are still niche vehicles, but at their current rate of growth, they could dominate the roads in another five or 10 years.

Exxon guns for all-time profit record

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Exxon Mobil, the world's largest publicly traded oil company, is within striking distance of setting an all-time profit record - again.

Analysts are expecting the company to post solid quarterly and full-year earnings next Thursday - and if the results top forecasts, Exxon could end up reporting the highest profit ever for a U.S. company.

Drought could force nuke-plant shutdowns

LAKE NORMAN, N.C. - Nuclear reactors across the Southeast could be forced to throttle back or temporarily shut down later this year because drought is drying up the rivers and lakes that supply power plants with the awesome amounts of cooling water they need to operate.

Utility officials say such shutdowns probably wouldn't result in blackouts. But they could lead to shockingly higher electric bills for millions of Southerners, because the region's utilities could be forced to buy expensive replacement power from other energy companies.

Already, there has been one brief, drought-related shutdown, at a reactor in Alabama over the summer.

"Water is the nuclear industry's Achilles' heel," said Jim Warren, executive director of N.C. Waste Awareness and Reduction Network, an environmental group critical of nuclear power. "You need a lot of water to operate nuclear plants." He added: "This is becoming a crisis."

Major integrated oil cos have stable outlook but challenges exist - Moody's

'Despite rising cash flows as a result of higher oil and gas prices and strong refining margins, these companies continue to face formidable reserve replacement, production growth and cost challenges,' said Moody's senior vice president Thomas Coleman in a report.

He added that the real issue for these companies in the longer-term is whether they will be able to retain a differential advantage based on capital resources and technology, and the extent to which the majors' competitive ranking within the petroleum industry will be gradually eroded by the national oil companies (NOCs).

Ukraine received over 1 bln cu m of Russian gas since year start

MOSCOW (RIA Novosti) - Ukraine has received over 1 billion cu m of Russian natural gas since January and its debt for gas supplies stands at $719 million, Swiss trader RosUkrEnergo, half owned by Gazprom, said on Wednesday.

Analysis: Brazil strikes gas again

MIAMI, Jan. 23 (UPI) -- Brazil's energy fortunes appear to keep growing with the discovery of a new gas field right next door to a bounty of undersea oil found last year, officials at state-run Petrobras announced this week.

Prius Designer Says Toyota-Led Industry Must Lose Oil Addiction

In a 2-mile-wide pit below, trucks head to refineries with loads of sand weighing more than Boeing 747s. Yellow flames shoot skyward as 900-degree-Fahrenheit (482- degree-Celsius) heat liquefies any embedded petroleum. Floating scarecrows and propane-powered cannons do their best to chase migrating birds from lethal wastewater ponds.

Eventually, nuclear reactors may surround the crater 270 miles (435 kilometers) northeast of Edmonton, Alberta, delivering the power required to wring oil from sand.

"This is what the end of the age of oil means," says Reinert, 60, who plans the vehicles Toyota will make in a quarter century as national manager for advanced technology at the U.S. sales unit in Torrance, California. "The car-based culture, the business-as-usual of building cars and trucks, is going to change dramatically."

Toyota catches GM in global sales

Wednesday's report did represent something of a moral victory for GM, which had been widely expected to lose its sales lead to Toyota during the course of 2007.

GM saw its second-best sales year on record, trailing only its 1978 total of 9.55 million vehicles, as it was lifted by strong overseas sales. Its sales in China broke the 1 million mark for the first time, while sales jumped 19 percent in its sales region that includes Latin America, Africa and the Middle East. They also doubled in Russia, another market seeing rapid industrywide growth.

Energy: Centre of power is on the move

The story of energy in the 21st century has been the relative decline of the developed world as both a producer and a consumer.

New forces with serious global ambitions such as China National Petroleum Corporation and Russia’s Gazprom have emerged on the world stage, and global markets for oil, gas, coal and uranium are increasingly shaped by emerging economies’ rapacious demand.

Those trends are set to continue and intensify. The question for the US, the European Union and Japan will be how well they can adjust to that change.

StatoilHydro says fire at Mongstad refinery but no details

OSLO (Thomson Financial) - Norwegian oil and gas producer StatoilHydro ASA confirmed reports that a fire had broken out at its Mongstad refinery in western Norway, without providing details.

"It's been confirmed there has been a fire but I can give you no details," said spokesman Gisle Johanson.

ConocoPhillips earnings rise on soaring oil prices

NEW YORK, Jan 23 (Reuters) - ConocoPhillips, the No. 3 U.S. oil company, posted higher fourth-quarter earnings on Wednesday, beating Wall Street expectations on record oil prices.

Still, its shares were down 2 percent in early trading as lower oil prices and fears of a recession weighed on the shares of the entire oil industry.

Refineries, airlines phased into EU CO2 charges

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Commission proposed on Wednesday that oil refineries and airlines pay more over time for permits to emit greenhouse gases under the European Union's emissions trading scheme.

EU Steel Industry Warns Brussels on Climate Plan

BRUSSELS - Europe's steelmakers warned the European Commission on Tuesday that production and jobs would move abroad to less environmentally demanding locations if Brussels did not amend radical plans to fight climate change.

Strong demand to boost spot uranium price in 2008

LONDON(Reuters) - Uranium spot prices are forecast to climb this year on stronger demand, but rising supplies are expected to cap the market in 2009, a Reuters survey showed.

Biofuel production may worsen water, food problems in Asia: study

TOKYO (Kyodo) - An international research group has warned in a recent study that continued rapid growth in biofuel production may worsen already serious water resource and food problems in Asia.

The International Water Management Institute said in its report that "Ambitious plans in China and India to greatly increase domestic production of biofuels derived from crops will put greater stress on these countries' water supplies, seriously undermining their ability to meet future food and feed demands."

Japan to probe seabed for deposits of rare metals

The Japanese government has secretly been looking at probing the seabed from next spring for deposits of ultra-rare metals used extensively by Japanese electronics manufacturers and other cutting-edge technology players.

...The scheme which is based on an untested theory of volcanic science and geology comes amid rising fears that the supply of indium and gallium may become volatile over the next few years due to the new export quotas enforced last year by China. Japan sources most of its indium from China who control over 60% of the world's refined indium production.

Record power shortage hits China

BEIJING/HONG KONG (Reuters) - China is facing its most severe power shortage ever as some plants struggle to secure increasingly costly coal and others shut down capacity rather than rack up losses by selling electricity at low rates.

The rebellion by power plant managers unwilling to generate at a loss is likely to worry policymakers still haunted by the nationwide diesel supply crisis last autumn, when refiners under similar pressure quietly curbed output and forced the government to make an unplanned and unwanted rise in fuel prices.

In a snow-covered China, entire regions are without electricity and gas

The energy shortfall has reached 70 gigawatts, equal to the production of all of Great Britain. There is a shortage of coal because of the closure of many non-compliant mines and the imposition of price caps. The snow is blocking the roads and preventing fuel delivery. The cold is also impacting water and gas suppliers.

China's State Grid urges government to intervene in power crisis

BEIJING (XFN-ASIA) - The State Grid Corp has asked the Chinese government to provide more assistance in handling the current power supply crisis, and to do all it can to boost the delivery of coal to key regions, according to Shanghai's China Business News.

China Shuts 5% of Coal-Fired Power Plants on Shortage

(Bloomberg) -- China has shut about 5 percent of its coal-fired power plants, forcing 13 provinces to ration electricity as snowfalls and transportation delays hamper deliveries of the fuel.

The five biggest electricity producers have shut 90 power stations with combined capacity exceeding 20,000 megawatts in northern and central China, figures today from the State Grid Corp. of China show. Coal stockpiles at the plants have dropped below the ``caution line'' of three days' requirements.

China Looks to Iran to Supply Gas

China National Offshore Oil Corp. could within two weeks sign an agreement with Iran for a guaranteed supply of liquefied natural gas for three Chinese terminals, two people familiar with the situation said Jan.21.

If concluded, the National Iranian Oil Co. would deliver 10 million metric tons of the gas for three new or expanded LNG terminals in China. The gas would come from Iran's North Pars project, the sources said.

Energy shortage forces Central Asians to burn dung

DUSHANBE -- With no heating and just three hours of electricity a day, Malokhat Atayeva is struggling to survive the coldest winter in three decades in her small town in western Tajikistan.

Forget the World Cup, tourism chief tells South Africa

Johannesburg - South Africa's energy crisis raises serious questions about its ability to successfully host the 2010 World Cup, the head of the Southern Africa Tourism Services Association (SATSA) said Wednesday, following days of crippling power outages. South Africa is suffering acute energy shortages, resulting in countrywide power cuts lasting several hours at a time as state electricity provider Eskom tries to cover demand.

Blackouts hit pay packets

The nationwide power cuts are costing workers income, as companies are forced to adjust their shift and working hours.

Unions are in talks with about 500 companies in the Western Cape seeking to change members' working hours to shift their employers' electricity demand to off-peak hours.

Many companies have already restructured shifts, sending employees home during load-shedding, and devised plans to pay for hours worked.

South Africa: City traffic lights to go green

The state-owned Central Energy Fund (CEF) has announced a massive countrywide drive to install solar-powered traffic lights at critical intersections in major cities to combat traffic congestion caused by load shedding.

Zambia: Power outrages

The power outages whose cause the country's electricity utility Zesco is still trying to fully establish, have created an uproar not only among industrial users but also among domestic consumers. Some of this outage has even assumed extreme forms in Lusaka with some irate members of the public taking the law into their own hands and resorting to acts of lawlessness.

The action by some residents of Mandevu township who ran amok destroying at least seven motor vehicles in an orgy of destruction in protest against the power outages is most unfortunate. More so that the vehicles and other property which were destroyed during the fracas, belonged to equally affected members of the public who were not in any way responsible for the blackout.

There is shortage of oil in market, says Bodman

DOHA: US Energy Secretary Sam Bodman says there is a shortage of oil in the market.

But he, however, said the current high oil price is a combination of various factors including a sliding dollar and instability in certain parts of the world – mainly Nigeria, Venezuela and Iran from where there are significant oil supplies.

Suncor's Sarnia refinery running at 70 percent

CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) - Suncor Energy Inc said on Tuesday its 70,000 barrel per day refinery in Sarnia, Ontario, was running at about 70 percent of capacity, with diesel supplies hit by a shortage of hydrogen.

Suncor spokesman Brad Bellows said the refinery's hydrogen supplier had shut down until at least Jan. 27, cutting needed supplies. He said the refinery was producing more "off-road quality" diesel fuel until it has sufficient quantities of the gas.

Bangladesh: No hike in prices of fertiliser, diesel in Boro season

The government will not go for price increase of diesel and fertiliser in the current Boro season though the subsidies on diesel and fertiliser will be over Tk 10,000 at the end of this fiscal year.

Agriculture Adviser CS Karim yesterday said the government would continue subsidy on fertiliser at least until the end of the Boro season.

Petro-Canada Unveils 2 Big Offshore Discoveries

Petro-Canada announced successful results from two international exploration wells - one in the United Kingdom sector of the North Sea and one in deepwater off Trinidad and Tobago.

Mexico's PRI opposition open to energy debate

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico's key opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) is open to all ideas for energy reform, including a constitutional change, the party's general secretary Jesus Murillo said on Tuesday.

The PRI, whose position is crucial in congressional votes, remains firmly opposed to privatizing state oil monopoly Pemex, but would back private-sector alliances if that would bolster flagging reserves, Murillo told Reuters as lawmakers sat down this month to discuss a new energy law.

A Fragile Peace: Congo Peace Deal Should Bolster Oil Companies

One week after an oil engineer for a European company is released from captivity along with 17 others, the Democratic Republic of Congo's government has announced it has reached a peace agreement with the rebels responsible for the kidnapping.

India: Stocks build-up by processors behind high oilseed prices

Speculators (euphemistically called investors) have also purchased large quantities in anticipation of price rise. Such artificial build up of stocks for speculative purposes – in the context of an overall shortage situation and high international prices – has raised open market rates to unprecedented levels. Worse, the benefit of the oilseed price rise since the harvest time (October 2007) has not flowed to the grower. If anything, an average soyabean grower or groundnut farmer received a small part of the price premium. Speculators have gathered the cream of profits; and consumers are paying a high price for their cooking oils.

Abu Dhabi To Capture 20M Tons of CO2; Inject in Oil Fields

Abu Dhabi plans to launch up to 15 carbon projects to capture as much as 20 million tons a year of greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, a government official said Tuesday.

"The projection is that we will be able to potentially capture about 20 million tons of carbon dioxide per year by 2020, and that will happen through about 10 to 15 carbon-capturing projects," Sam Nader, director for carbon management at Abu Dhabi Future Energy Co., or Adfec, told Zawya Dow Jones in an interview.

Dark days for African mining

Namibia has become the latest southern African country to freeze all major investment projects due to an energy crisis that threatens to overshadow the region’s growing FDI prospects.

The mining industry will be among the sectors worst hit, with Namibia’s state electricity utility NamPower placing a moratorium on all new mines, saying they would have to wait until at least 2009 to get power.

Peak oil to arrive sooner than expected

Peak oil, the point in time at which the maximum global petroleum production rate is reached, will arrive sooner than most observers expect and bring about an economic crisis that will be much greater than the one that is currently taking place in the world markets, according to author David Strahan. Speaking at the World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi, Strahan said peak oil may arrive as early as 2017, but no later than 2020.

Have No Fear, Wave [3] of III of the HUI is Nearly Here

Peak oil is going to seriously play into how much gold and silver can actually be mined, but the Johnny and Jane Come-Lately are going to be blinded by the shine of gold and not even see this coming. The termination of this bull market will see stocks fall off a cliff because this will be the end game for stocks.

Sudan doubles crude exports to China in 2007

Crude oil exports from Sudan to China more than doubled last year to top 200,000 barrels a day, with official data showing that China now takes 40 percent of the east African producer’s total output.

Australia: Environment levy paying dividends, says council

“EL funds have enabled council to provide direction through the development of a Sustainability Action Plan that focuses on climate change, population growth and peak oil.

“Protecting the region’s rich biodiversity is another high priority area utilising EL funds."

Lights out for Earth Hour

Peterborough Green-Up and Town Ward Coun. Dean Pappas are beginning to generate interest in Earth Hour - a global challenge to draw attention to climate change by shutting off lights between 8 and 9 p.m. on March 29.

Cities such as Toronto, Copenhagen, Chicago, Melbourne, Brisbane, Tel Aviv and Manila have signed up to switch off for Earth Hour.

World's changing - as it always does

Imagine a world in which limitless clean energy is available for cheap, and material goods come out of a fabricator that absorbs unformed raw materials, breaks them down into building blocks, and then builds anything you can design from the molecular level upward. Such a world solves almost all of our known material problems and creates new problems we can't really even imagine - which actually quite accurately describes the world we live in right now, as seen by our grandparents.

What's wrong with this country, if anything, is its growing conservatism - probably caused by all of us baby boomers turning into curmudgeons. Conservatism is about conserving, hanging on to what was good in the past.

The end of cheap oil: Are you ready?

I am now convinced that, unlike the events of 1973, the situation we face today is not a short-term predicament. It's a multifaceted problem. It is unlike anything we've encountered before. It is non-negotiable. It will not be easy. It will change everything.

The time to prepare is short because reducing our dependence on cheap oil will take decades. Supply chain professionals will have to examine alternatives to current practices and consider new strategies in preparation for the end of the era of cheap oil.

To put it bluntly, the wolf is howling outside the door and may already be in the room.

High fuel prices are puzzling

Consumer advocates and others smell a rip-off. As proof, they note that a few California refiners have reacted by cutting production, shutting down early for maintenance and lining up exports in an effort to shore up wholesale prices.

"The California economy has been penalized by high gas prices for months, and now, when the opportunity comes for a brief window of significantly lower prices, the workings of the market are being frustrated," energy economist Philip K. Verleger Jr. said. "The people who own refineries are doing everything they can to prevent [the declining wholesale price] from trickling down to the consumer."

Oil prices dive on US recession fears

LONDON (AFP) - Oil prices fell heavily on Wednesday as a dramatic US interest rate cut failed to end concerns about a recession in the United States, the world's biggest consumer of energy.

New York's main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in March, sank 1.30 dollars to 87.91 dollars per barrel. The February contract expired Tuesday at 89.85 dollars.

Why we’re not reliving the 70’s oil crisis

I wasn’t alive for the oil crisis of the 1970’s, but I’ve heard stories - the rationing, the license plates, the long periods of waiting that must have made a driver think twice about commuting to work. Economists have always blamed the crisis - and the periods of low growth, high unemployment, and high inflation - on instability in the Middle East, with the Yom Kippur war in 1973 and the Iranian revolution in 1979.

Now the situation in the Middle East is even stickier. For starters, there’s the Iraq war and the war on terror, neither of which are going smoothly. Add that to fears of foreign dependency, energy insecurity, and peak oil. The price of oil is definitely going up. But the gas lines aren’t snaking around the block, and you’re not seeing fewer gas guzzlers on the road. So what’s the deal?

China's 2nd largest oil field 11.79% larger than previously thought

China Petrochemical Corporation (Sinopec) told Xinhua on Wednesday that the nation's second largest oil field's proven oil reserve was 11.79 percent higher than previously thought to the exploration efforts made by the oilfield.

Further exploration in the field revealed that reserves in Shengli oil field were 102.03 million tonnes, 12.03 million tones more than previously thought, said Sinopec, the country's largest oil refiner.

Shell CEO to meet Nigerian president

The head of Royal Dutch Shell PLC said Wednesday that "conditions must improve" before the company could resume production that was cut because of unrest in Nigeria.

Speaking on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum, CEO Jeroen van der Veer told Dow Jones Newswires he would meet with Nigeria's president, Umaru Yar'Adua, on Friday about security and energy funding.

Van der Veer said he hoped to regain its share of lost oil output but "conditions must improve for us to restart production, and we're not there yet."

Russia makes last fuel oil shipment to N. Korea

MOSCOW (Interfax) - Russia has fulfilled its obligation to provide fuel oil to North Korea.

The last shipment was made on January 22, the press service of Rosneft, the oil company responsible for supplies to North Korea, told the Oil News Agency.

"Yesterday, the last shipment of fuel oil was unloaded from our tanker," the company said.

ANALYSIS - Russia oil refiners turn to home for higher prices

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Some of Russia's largest fuel exporters are redirecting export volumes to the domestic market in a rush to cash in on high prices at home while recession fears drive a downturn on international oil markets.

Petrobras' Tupi Field May Lead to Other Discoveries

(Bloomberg) -- Petroleo Brasileiro SA, Brazil's state-controlled oil company, said the Tupi gas field may be "only one indication" of the potential reserves on offer at a recent discovery.

Tupi, one of the world's biggest finds of the past 30 years, could be followed by other discoveries in the region, Chief Executive Officer Jose Sergio Gabrielli said today in a Bloomberg Television interview from Davos, Switzerland.

"We are still talking about preliminary data but the indications point to big volumes," Gabrielli said. "We think that we have a very large, new exploratory frontier in the coast of Brazil."

Tourists stranded on Table Mountain

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - The power woes being felt across southern Africa reached one of the region's premier attractions — leaving tourists trapped suspended in cable cars at Cape Town's landmark Table Mountain.

The power cut Monday night trapped 500 people at the top of the mountain and in two cable cars for three hours. That was followed Tuesday by an outage of about an hour across the Zambian capital that forced some nurses at a hospital to work by candlelight. Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe have also felt the effects of a deepening regional energy crisis.

Aging infrastructure and growing demand has lead to increasing power outages in southern Africa. This has been exacerbated in the last week as rolling blackouts in South Africa caused the national electricity utility to suspend exports to neighboring countries as it battles to meet demand in the continent's economic hub.

Politicians Censor Report on Dangers of Arctic Drilling

There's black gold beneath the snow white Arctic -- and oil companies are gearing up to exploit it on a massive scale. Scientists had hoped to warn of the scope of the environmental dangers of Arctic drilling in a new report, but 60 passages have been removed following pressure from the United States and Sweden.

WWF calls for moratorium on oil exploration in Arctic

TROMSOE, Norway (AFP) - Global conservation group WWF called on Tuesday for a moratorium on all new oil exploration in the Arctic, insisting that the environmental risks to the sensitive eco system there were too great.

South Koreans angry over worst-ever oil spill

SEOUL, South Korea - Thousands of angry South Korean fishermen and residents of villages devastated by the country's worst oil spill scuffled with riot police Wednesday during a demonstration demanding quick compensation for their losses.

UN warns biofuels could fuel deforestation, land disputes

BANGKOK (AP): The world's rush to embrace biofuels is causing a spike in the price of corn and other crops and could worsen water shortages and force poor communities off their land, a United Nations official said Wednesday.

Airlines abandon higher fuel surcharge

DALLAS - A doubling of the fuel surcharge tacked on to most tickets by American Airlines and other carriers appeared to flop, the second straight unsuccessful effort by airlines to boost the fee.

American last week raised its fuel surcharge to $40 from $20 for many round trip flights, and over the weekend other carriers went along. But by Monday, Northwest Airlines Corp. had began a gradual retreat, which forced other airlines to also drop the fee, according to analysts who watch air fares.

Sweden to study belching cows

STOCKHOLM, Sweden - A Swedish university has received $590,000 in research funds to measure the greenhouse gases released when cows belch.

Global warming: French carbon emissions sharply lower in 2006

PARIS (AFP) - French greenhouse gas emissions fell sharply in 2006, helped by a warmer fall, leaving the country well on course to meet its goals under the UN's Kyoto Protocol, France's ecology minister said Tuesday.

Carbon emissions were 2.5 percent lower in 2006 compared with 2005, and four percent lower than in 1990, the Protocol's benchmark year, Ecology Minister Jean-Louis Borloo told journalists at an annual reception.

New award for climate-change campaigner Gore

STOCKHOLM (AFP) - Al Gore picked up his latest award for campaigning on climate change issues when he was handed the Gothenburg Prize for sustainable development Tuesday, organisers said.

EU climate plan to cut climate change gases

BRUSSELS (AFP) - The European Commission unveiled Wednesday a sweeping strategy for Europe to lead the fight against global climate change amid bickering over how to share the huge burden.

Study: Warming may cut US hurricane hits

Global warming could reduce how many hurricanes hit the United States, according to a new federal study that clashes with other research. The new study is the latest in a contentious scientific debate over how man-made global warming may affect the intensity and number of hurricanes.