AHMEDABAD: International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, is helping Ahmedabad-based Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA) provide energy-efficient cook stoves and solar lanters to its members. IFC will provide a partial credit guarantee for a $5 million loan that an Indian private sector bank is providing to SEWA-sponsored Grassroots Trading Network for Women.

Under the initiative, women from various villages in Gujarat will be provided a loan to buy the combination of stove and lantern, at Rs 2,800 and Rs 1,800 respectively.

Direct cool refrigerators, geysers and colour televisions will be next in the list of appliances for which energy efficiency labelling is to be made mandatory by the Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE), a body under the Union Ministry of Power.

These three are among 10 appliances for which energy efficiency rating norms, denoted by stars, are voluntary. More stars meant more energy efficiency. Such labelling is mandatory for air-conditioners, frost-free refrigerators, distribution transformers and tubular fluorescent lights.

Major energy savings in the steel re-rolling sector and in the small tea processing enterprise, initiated by the UNDP, has seen a substantive increase in energy efficiency in these industries.

UNDP, India, country director Caitlin Wiesen, told this newspaper, “Intervention in the steel re-rolling industry has seen efficiency levels go up between 30-40 per cent.”

The Capital Development Authority’s (CDA) plan to install 65,000 light-emitting diodes (LED) at an estimated cost of Rs6.8 billion was challenged in the Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Tuesday.

Advocates Mohammad Naseem Khan and Syed Shajjar Abbas in their petition contended before the court that the multi-billion project had been awarded to a favourite firm by the prime minister and his task force constituted to oversee the CDA’s affairs.

China will provide financial subsidies of 26.5 billion yuan ($4.2 billion) to stimulate the consumption of energy-saving products, mainly automobiles and household appliances, said the State Council.

The green measure also aims to expand domestic demand in a bid to provide stable growth for the world's second-largest economy. The subsidy will be available for household appliances including air conditioners, refrigerators and washing machines for one year.

Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE), a statutory body under the Union ministry of power, is planning to save 2,308 Mw of energy worth around Rs 11,540 crore during the 12th Five Year Plan (2012-17) by mandating the labelling of electronic products. Of this, 400 Mw, worth Rs 2,000 crore, is expected to be saved from the air-conditioners segment.

The central government has already mandated four products – split air-conditioners, fluorescent lamps, transformers and frost-free refrigerators – under the energy efficiency star-labelling to reduce energy consumption, and identified 10 products on a voluntary basis.

Reluctance to raise ambitions to cut greenhouse gas emissions due to economic constraints is threatening progress towards limiting global warming, delegates at United Nations' climate talks in Germany warned on Monday.

The talks in Bonn, which end on May 25, are partly to discuss ways of raising the level of ambition on cuts but the worsening eurozone crisis and battered global economy have increased reluctance to commit to more financially onerous cuts by the end of the decade, delegates told Reuters.