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.

A new type of solar cell which could boost the efficiency of solar panels by over 25 percent compared to silicon-based cells has been developed by British scientists, but they need another two or three years to assess whether it is commercially viable.

Scientists at the University of Cambridge have developed a hybrid solar cell which is capable of converting 44 percent of sunlight into electrical power, 29 percent more than traditional cells' capability of 34 percent, they said in the journal NanoLetters on Wednesday.

U.S. scientists using satellite data have established a more accurate figure of the amount of annual sea level rise from melting glaciers and ice caps which should aid studies on how quickly coastal areas may flood as global warming gathers pace.

The Grand Canyon will soon ban the sale of bottled water, responding to concerns that empty plastic bottles scattered around the park are spoiling views of the natural wonder.

The National Park Service has approved a plan that would eliminate the sale of bottled water within 30 days, after nearly $290,000 was spent to install 10 water stations inside the park. Visitors can use the stations to refill their own water bottles, which they can tote in from the outside.

BP ratcheted up the rhetoric around multi-billion dollar claims from the Gulf oil spill by warning it would "vigorously" contest lawsuits over one of the world's worst environmental disasters.

While reiterating BP's "bias for settling" at hearings scheduled later this month, CEO Bob Dudley said he would only do so "on fair and reasonable terms."

As he unveiled higher fourth quarter profit on Tuesday and a rise in the dividend, which he said showed BP was putting the spill behind it, Dudley acknowledged the lawsuits were the biggest uncertainty facing the British oil major.

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.

The United States remained the primary backer of biotech crop technology in 2011, but adoption spread internationally as the total global planted area of genetically modified seeds grew 8 percent from a year ago, according to a report issued Tuesday.

Roughly 160 million hectares, or 395.2 million acres, were planted with biotech crops in 2011, up 8 percent from 2010, said the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications (ISAAA) in its annual report on biotech seed use.

In the village of Pithauli, surrounded by ripening mustard fields, a woman hauls a cow carcass on a trolley, drops it in an open field, then runs and hides in a nearby hut as dozens of vultures swoop down.

In under half an hour, the carcass has been reduced to picked bones by the dun-colored birds, occasionally squabbling as they feed.

The site is one of a handful of vulture "restaurants" opened to save the birds, which help keep the environment clean by disposing of carrion, from extinction -- and at the same time help impoverished villages become self-sufficient.

The UK's greenhouse gas output climbed 3.1 percent in 2010 as people used more gas to heat their homes amid colder weather and more nuclear plants were closed for maintenance, according to final government estimates published Tuesday.

The country emitted 590.4 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent of the six greenhouse gases (GHGs) covered by the Kyoto Protocol, up from 572.5 million tonnes in 2009, said the government report, revising an initial estimate made last year of 582.4 million.

Talk of a Middle Eastern green energy boom is likely to prove no more than a mirage with little hope of the region saving clean technology companies from the shrinking project pools of Europe.

Instead India, China and Latin America offer some hope for green energy companies struggling in a European market drowning in debt and a North American market awash with gas.