Climate Change

Halogens: will they be banned

The traditional light bulb is to be banned in a world first to lower energy and emission costs.

Federal Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull this morning announced standard incandescent light bulbs would be phased out within three years in a bid to reduce energy consumption.

The new plan could cause troubles, with new fluoro lights not effective with dimmer switches, or in areas which use the popular halogen bulbs.

John Howard promised not to "sacrifice" the jobs of coalminers with knee-jerk environmental policies as he sharpened his attack on Labor's climate change policies.

Signalling an election-year campaign to woo voters in coal-based electorates, the Prime Minister called for a "measured and sensible" approach to climate change.

But with Kevin Rudd determined to portray his rival as out of touch on the issue, Labor intensified its call for immediate action to reduce damaging greenhouse gas emissions.

The parliamentary brawl came as the Prime Minister's emissions trading taskforce floated the idea of businesses operating under a "single trading scheme" worldwide withthe release of its issues paper.

The United Nations (UN) climate panel has agreed that human activities are causing global warming that may bring more droughts, heatwaves and rising seas, delegates say.

The panel's report, due for release tonight and bolstering conclusions from a 2001 study, may put pressure on governments and companies to do more to curb greenhouse gases mainly from burning fossil fuels in power plants, factories and cars.

Scientists and government officials in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the most authoritative group on global warming, agreed it was "very likely" that human activities were the main cause of warming in the past 50 years, delegates say.

The U.S. government wants the world's scientists to develop technology to block sunlight as a last-ditch way to halt global warming, the Guardian has learned.

It says research into techniques such as giant mirrors in space or reflective dust pumped into the atmosphere would be "important insurance" against rising emissions, and has lobbied for such a strategy to be recommended by a major United Nations report on climate change, the first part of which will be published on Friday, Feb. 2.

The U.S. has also attempted to steer the U.N. report, prepared by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), away from conclusions that would support a new worldwide climate treaty based on binding targets to reduce emissions - as sought by Tony Blair.