The overall environmental performance is improving in Sri Lanka and it has been ranked as a moderate performer, according to the 2012 Environmental Performance Index (EPI) released during the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland last week.

After the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster, Vietnam suspended its nuclear plans and waited for more than a decade before reviving them.

But Vietnam was undeterred by last year's Fukushima nuclear meltdown in Japan, the world's worst atomic accident since Chernobyl, and is racing ahead with plans to start construction of its first reactor in 2014, which should go online six years later.

It aims to follow that up with another 14 reactors by 2030.

China’s airlines will refuse to pay any charges under the European Union’s new carbon trading scheme, while other Asia Pacific carriers, already battling a weak travel market, are likely to pass on the extra cost to passengers.

The EU’s Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) was launched in 2005 as one of the major pillars of the bloc’s efforts to combat climate change. From January 1, all airlines using EU airports are included in the cap-and-trade scheme.

From January 1 all airlines flying in and out of the European Union will need to meet a specific carbon emission requirement. Though protests have been voiced from various countries, the European Union is going ahead with the emission caps for the airlines.
A senior oil industry official said, “We are at present producing jet fuels which meets the specifications laid out. Currently, there is no communications for any change in these specifications like was in the case of auto fuels – upgradation to Euro I-IV.”

With the Kyoto Protocol unlikely to produce a new set of targets, Carbon Forum Asia 2011 which concluded in Singapore last week, released IETA’s Greenhouse Gas Market Report for the first time in Asia Pacific, lending credence to the region’s increasing importance in the global emissions trading market.

U.S. goals of establishing regional free trade and an environmental policy at the APEC summit are useful but too ambitious for some developing nations, China said on Monday, days before President Hu Jintao heads to Hawaii for the meeting.

APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) members from 20 countries have taken a "fundamentally supportive attitude" of the U.S. proposals for green growth and innovation to be raised at the leaders' meeting in Honolulu from November 12-13, Assistant Foreign Minister Wu Hailong said.

Lending credence to the Asia Pacific region’s importance in global emission trading market, the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA) launched the Annual Greenhouse Gas Market report for the first time at the Carbon Forum Asia 2011 in Singapore.

Featuring strategic white papers describing the policy developments and current emissions abatement programmes in over 29 countries, the report provides insights on the world’s engagement with climate change through pricing and market mechanisms.
clean development mechanism

As uncertainty looms over the future of the Kyoto Protocol, the delegates of the Carbon Forum Asia 2011 met at Singapore in an attempt to iron out differences and arrive at new solutions. The sombre note was provided by the World Bank assessment that global carbon markets have stalled after five years of consecutive growth. However, the global carbon-trading market had already touched $142 billion last year, a long way from the initial year of 2005.

Thailand aims to revive a long-stalled plan to become an oil trading and biofuel hub in Southeast Asia, challenging Singapore's dominance, its new energy minister said on Thursday.

The net oil importer plans to boost its crude reserves, excluding refined oil products, to 29 days from 18 days now to improve energy security, said Pichai Naripthaphan, as consumers face volatile crude prices which continue to hold above $100 a barrel..