Agence France-Presse: US President Barack Obama's administration announced plans Monday for a new office handling climate change, aiming to help businesses chart future plans as the nation shifts to a greener economy. The first practical effect was the creation of a website, www.climate.gov, which came online Monday and brings together government resources on climate change for business, scholars and the general public. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke said that the new Climate Service would help ...

BBC: Four "eco-towns" due to be built in England are to receive a funding boost of £60m to be spread over the next two years, the government has announced. The towns, which were whittled down from a shortlisted 12 last year, are Whitehill-Bordon in Hampshire, St Austell in Cornwall, Rackheath in Norfolk and North West Bicester in Oxfordshire. Each is set to receive just over £9m for the next financial year from the Department for Communities and Local Government and the Homes and ...

Greenwire: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration launched a new climate service today, a reorganization effort aimed at improving long-range assessments of climate change, sea-level rise and severe weather. The effort is aimed at providing long-term forecasts to assist fisheries managers, farmers, state governments, renewable energy developers, water managers and others. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke likened the new climate shop to the 140-year-old National Weather Service, ...

United Press International: Scientific evidence from the environmental community suggests global warming trends are the result of human activity, a U.N. official said in Ankara. Achim Steiner, the head of the U.N. Environment Program, deflected criticism of a U.N.-backed panel that admitted to errors in its reporting on the rate of climate change. The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said in January it made errors in reports saying the Himalayan glaciers could melt away by 2035, which the ...

Agence France-Presse: A massive Australian coal export deal with China, seen as boosting the economy and creating jobs, would ultimately result in enormous greenhouse gas emissions, The Greens political party said Sunday. Australian miner Resourcehouse announced Saturday it had secured a 60-billion-US-dollar deal with energy-hungry China to ship 30 million tonnes of coal a year from a proposed mine in Queensland. But Greens Senator Bob Brown said the deal would result in the release of significant ...

International Falls Daily Journal: The potential effects of climate change and other factors on the long-term viability of moose in Voyageurs National Park has prompted a collaring project. Park staff plan to capture up to 14 adult moose to attach state-of-art telemetry collars in the next weeks as part of a continuing project on moose in the park. The project is a collaborative effort among scientists from Voyageurs National Park, the University of Minnesota-Duluth's Natural Resources Research Institute, and ...

Business Green: A national renewable energy standard could create more than 274,000 more jobs in the US, according to a new study, which argues that mandatory targets for renewable energy generation would prove one of the most effective means of generating so-called "green collar jobs". Lobby group the RES Alliance for Jobs commissioned Navigant Consulting to analyse the employment impact of proposals for a "25 per cent by 2025" renewable energy standard, which would force US energy firms to source a ...

Associated Press: President Barack Obama's administration is forming a new agency to study and report on the changing climate. Climate change has drawn widespread concern in recent years as temperatures around the world rise, threatening to harm crops, spread disease, increase sea levels, change storm and drought patterns and cause polar melting. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and Jane Lubchenco, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, planned to announce Monday that NOAA ...