Record growth over the last year pushed the UK green goods and services market past the £122bn mark, according to new government figures that reveal the low carbon economy now employs almost one million people.

The sector grew 4.7 per cent against the 2009/10 figure of £116.8bn, providing an additional £5.4bn of economic activity as green industries continued to defy the sluggish progress made by the rest of the economy.

The captain and the navigation officer of a container ship that smashed into a reef off a popular New Zealand holiday resort were jailed on Friday for causing the country's worst environmental disaster in decades.

The two men, captain Mauro Balomaga and navigation officer Leonil Relon, both Filipino nationals, were jailed for seven months. They had faced maximum terms of seven years imprisonment.

The United Nations chief, Ban Ki-moon, held out little hope on Thursday of an historic outcome at the Rio global development summit, now less than a month away, admitting negotiations had been "painfully slow".

The warning was the latest from United Nations officials and others involved in preparations that the summit, known as Rio+20, is unlikely to replicate the breakthrough achievements of the original environmental gathering in the city in 1992.

The Ministry of Finance (MOF) announced Thursday that central government-funded expenditures on energy savings and emission reductions as well as on renewable energies development will total 97.9 billion yuan ($15.5 billion) this year, up 25.1 billion yuan from 2011.

The government's accumulative "green" investment will hit 170 billion yuan in 2012, the MOF said.

Meanwhile, the central government has budgeted 25.5 billion yuan in subsidies for expanding the consumption of energy-saving household electrical appliances this year, according to the MOF.

Yancheng of Jiangsu province, one of the three major cities involved in the province's coastal development plan, views the ecological system as its most important strategic resource and insists that economic development should not come at the cost of the environment and ecology, said Zhao Peng, Party Secretary of Yancheng.

The majority of Americans (58 percent) think that protecting the environment improves economic growth and creates new jobs. The results are from a recently released poll by Yale University and George Mason University's climate change communication program. Only 17 percent of the poll's respondents think that environmental protection hurts the economy and job growth, and 25 percent think there is no effect.

The growing of tea invariably replaces biodiversity-rich tropical forests with a beautiful, but single species (monoculture). Soil erosion, competition for water, pollution from fertilizers and the requirement of firewood to fuel tea driers, are some of the main environmental concerns that accompany commercial tea cultivation.

By following the Sustainable Agriculture Network Standard, tea growers can pro-actively address social and environmental challenges. By complying with the requirements of this standard, tea estates can obtain "Rainforest Alliance Certification".

Nudged by the Delhi High Court and the Central Information Commission, the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) has finally made public the Gadgil panel report on ecology in the Western Ghats, but with a disclaimer.

The report, which was uploaded on the Ministry’s site on May 23, says: “The Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel report has not been formally accepted by the Ministry and that the report is still being analysed and considered by the Ministry.’’

The report was submitted to the Ministry in August 2011. Public comments have been invited within 45 days.

The National Green Tribunal has agreed to hear a plea challenging the November 9, 2012 environment clearance (EC) granted to Lavasa Corporation Ltd for its $ 31 billion hillside township project in Pune district of Maharashtra.

The Tribunal directed Lavasa, the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) and Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) to file their replies to the petition of a project-hit Pune native before July 24.