Tiny Pacific nations which are most at threat from rising seas have vowed to dump diesel and other dirty expensive fuels blamed for causing global warming and replace them with clean sources.

Using coconut biofuel and solar panels, Tokelau — which consists of three island dots half way between New Zealand and Hawaii — plans to become self-sufficient in energy this year.

The leaders of other so-called small island states around the world made commitments at a meeting this week organised by the UN Development Programme and the Barbados government.

A new report by the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) highlights the dramatic roll-out of onshore wind turbines and calls on the Government to do more to protect the countryside.

The campaign group says that in many cases these are damaging valued landscapes and intruding into some of the most tranquil areas of England.

The CPRE is now calling for a locally accountable, strategically planned approach to onshore wind development.

Chief executive of CPRE, Shaun Spiers, said onshore turbines threaten the "beauty and tranquillity of much-loved landscapes."

Large wind farms can substantially influence local climate, most notably by boosting nighttime temperatures, a new study suggests.

Utilizing the same analytical techniques used to discern temperature trends in urban heat islands, researchers scrutinized satellite images of a 10,000-square-kilometer area of west-central Texas, home to four of the world's largest wind farms (turbines near Fluvanna, Texas, shown).

Large wind farms slightly increase temperatures near the ground as the turbines' rotor blades pull down warm air, according to researchers who analyzed nine years of satellite readings around four of the world's biggest wind farms.

The study showed for the first time that wind farms of a certain scale, while producing clean, renewable energy, do have some long-term effect on the immediate environment.

Britain's North Sea has the potential to lead the world in offshore wind and carbon capture and storage technology, British Prime Minister David Cameron said as over 20 companies signed a deal to turn the region into a major renewable energy hub.

Major utilities such as Britain's Scottish Power and Norway's Statoil, manufacturers ranging from Siemens to Gamesa and supply chain companies are supporting a plan to develop the offshore wind potential of the North Sea, provisionally named Norstec.

New York City is about to update its zoning regulations to catch up with the Bloomberg administration’s environmental image and to make it easier for buildings to insulate exterior walls, install solar panels and put gardens on rooftops.

With buildings accounting for 75 percent of the city’s greenhouse gas emissions, city planners say, the hope is that owners will take steps to increase their structures’ energy efficiency, produce their own renewable energy, put storm water to good use and, in some cases, even grow food.

MUMBAI: The renewable energy ministry is planning to re-introduce incentives for the wind energy sector to allay fears that capacity addition could fall after the sops were withdrawn from April 1. The government rolled back two key incentives for the sector this year: accelerated depreciation and generation-based incentive. Industry players say the withdrawal of these sops will keep power producers at bay and could reduce annual capacity addition to less than 1,000 mw in 2012-13, against the target of 3,000 mw.

Britain and the United States will agree to collaborate on developing floating wind turbine technology at a clean energy ministerial meeting in London this week, the UK's department of energy and climate change (DECC) said on Monday.

Energy ministers from 23 of the world's biggest economies meet Wednesday and Thursday to discuss how to speed up the move to cleaner energy technologies.