Burning cowdung cakes can be 10 times more harmful than burning wood in poorly ventilated kitchens, something that can damage the lungs, a study comparing the two widely used kitchen fuels has found. Women who spend many hours cooking food in poorly ventilated homes can develop chronic obstructive lung disease (COPD), asthma, tuberculosis and lung cancer, says Dr Sundeep Salvi, director of Pune’s Chest Research Foundation. Exposure to biomass fuel smoke, he says, is a bigger risk factor for COPD than smoking.

Coal-reliant Poland aims to increase support for biogas and solar generation through the end of the decade while cutting support for investment in wind and other renewable generation, a government official said on Tuesday.

Deputy Economy Minister Mieczyslaw Kasprzak said a new draft bill calls for Poland to increase the share of renewables in Poland's energy mix to 15.5 percent by 2020, up from less than 10 percent in 2010.

"Our goal is to simplify, optimize and improve the support mechanism for renewables," Kasprzak told Reuters in a recent interview.

The Karnataka government has invoked Section 11 of the Electricity Act, 2003, prohibiting the open access and sale of exportable power by generators outside the state. The directive would come into effect from February 1 and would be in force till the end of this year.

The tentative rate for power supply by generators under Section 11 and those that do not have power purchase agreements with electricity supply companies would be Rs 5.30 a unit, subject to determination of the final rate by the Karnataka Electricity Regulatory Commission.

The World Bank's carbon finance initiatives will likely be needed for at least five years, as the United Nations struggles to create a self-sufficient, international carbon market, the manager of the bank's carbon finance unit told Reuters.

Negotiators at December's U.N. climate talks in South Africa agreed to extend the 1997 Kyoto Protocol - the only global pact enforcing carbon cuts on developed nations - for at least five years beyond its first commitment period at the end of 2012.