China's heavily polluted capital, Beijing, plans to reduce air pollution levels by 15 percent by 2015 and 30 percent by 2020 through phasing out old cars, relocating factories and planting new forests, state media said on Thursday.

The level of air pollution in the capital varies, depending on winds. But a cocktail of smokestack emissions, vehicle exhaust, dust and aerosols have at times blanketed Beijing in a pungent, beige shroud for days on end over the past few months, and has even forced the cancellation of flights.

British Airways, Qantas and other airlines are calling on governments to find a swift resolution to a political dispute over the European Union's carbon scheme, because the deadlock may create competitive distortions.

Since the start of 2012, EU law obliges all airlines using EU airports to be included in the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS), the 27-nation bloc's main policy to fight global warming as it caps emissions on over 11,000 power and industrial plants.

With the European Union facing global flak over imposition of a green tax on all aircraft flying in its skies, world airlines’ body IATA has warned European airlines of “retaliatory action” by non-EU nations if a global solution was not arrived at soon.

NEW DELHI: Ministers of South Africa, Brazil, China and India - the BASIC group - will meet here on February 13-14 to chalk out a joint strategy for the post-2020 global climate regime. The meeting of the group, which was the most prominent block of countries at Durban talks along with the EU, comes weeks ahead of the deadline to make submissions to the UN on the framework for negotiations for the new regime, Durban Platform.

China recently released a set of “world's highest resolution” lunar images taken by its second moon orbiter, Chang'e-2, as it braces to launch its next mission to land a rover to explore its surface. China's State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defence (SASTIND) recently published a set of full coverage map of the Moon and its images with a resolution of seven meters captured by Chang'e-2.

With European Union (EU) facing global flak over imposition of a green tax on all aircraft flying in its skies, world airlines’ body IATA has warned European airlines of ‘‘retaliatory action’’ by non-EU nations if a global solution was not arrived at soon. ‘‘Time is not on our side. Airlines from Europe may face some retaliatory action.

China’s painstaking development of a low-cost, efficient energy solution for its commuters holds a lesson for India.

A plan to fast-track the stalled Keystone XL oil pipeline was passed by a key committee in the U.S. House of Representatives, as Republicans made yet another attempt to spur approval of the project that has become a major issue in the 2012 elections.

The bill would wrest decision-making on the pipeline from the Obama administration and hand it to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which would be compelled to issue approval permits quickly on the Canada-to-Texas project.