The nonpartisan United States Congressional Budget Office has said a tax on carbon dioxide emissions could help the US mitigate climate change while significantly increasing government revenue.

President Barack Obama supports plans to price carbon dioxide emissions from power plants, vehicles and factories that have been blamed for worsening climate change.

Reuters Newsagency says the report concludes levying a tax on such emissions would both curb carbon dioxide pollution and become a meaningful source of federal revenue.

“A carbon tax that covered the bulk of carbon dioxide emissions or the carbon content of most fossil fuel consumed in the United States could generate a substantial amount of revenue,” reads the just released report Effects of a Carbon Tax on the Economy and the Environment.

Specifically, the report points out that a 2011 CBO study found that a program that set a $20 charge for emitting a tonne of carbon dioxide and then increasing the tariff from there would raise a total of nearly $1.2 trillion during its first decade.

Such a move would also curb total US emissions of carbon dioxide by about eight per cent.

Reuters reports a plan to put a price on carbon pollution fell flat in Congress in 2010 and the White House has said that there is no point in proposing such a plan in the near-term since the Republican-controlled House of Representatives is so hostile.

The report concludes a carbon tax would certainly harm the economy in the near-term and policymakers may chose to use some of the revenue to offset the higher costs of goods and services that would become a reality under such a tax.

However, variable weather, increased droughts and rising sea levels are among the future costs of climate change that could be diminished if a carbon tax were put in place, the report says.

“Given the inherent uncertainty of predicting the effects of climate change, and the possibility that it could trigger catastrophic effects, politicians might view a carbon tax as a reflection of society’s willingness to pay to reduce the risk of potentially very expensive damage in the future,” the report says.

Representative Henry Waxman, the ranking Democrat on the US House Energy and Commerce Committee, requested the report.

Solar Impulse, the European built experimental solar aircraft has landed safely in Texas, completing the second and longest leg of an attempt to fly across the United States powered only by the sun.

Developers of Solar Impulse eventually plan to pilot the aircraft around the globe.

The experimental aircraft touched down at Dallas/Forth Worth International Airport after logging 18 hours and 21 minutes in the air to cover 823 nautical miles from Arizona.

The flight set a new absolute world distance record in solar aviation, organisers said.

Solar Impulse, which flies at an average pace of just 69 kilometres as hour, began its cross-country venture on May 3 with an 18-hour-plus flight from northern California to Phoenix.

After additional stops in St Louis and Washington, pausing at each destination to wait for favorable weather, the flight team hopes to conclude the plane’s voyage at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport in early July.

Swiss pilots Bertrand Piccard and Andre Borschberg, the co-founders of the project, are taking turns flying the plane, which has a single-seat cockpit.

Mr Piccard piloted the first leg from California to Arizona, and Mr Borschberg flew the second stretch to Texas.

“This leg was particularly challenging because of fairly strong winds at the landing,” Mr Borschberg said in a statement released after the flight.

He already held the record for the longest-duration flight in a solar-powered plane of 26 hours.

The Solar Impulse project began in 2003 with a 10-year budget of €90 million and has involved engineers from Swiss escalator maker Schindler and research aid from Belgian chemicals group Solvay, backers that want to test new materials and technologies while also gaining brand recognition.

Project organisers say the journey is also intended to boost worldwide support for the adoption of clean-energy technologies.

With the wingspan of a jumbo jet and the same weight as a small car, the Solar Impulse is a test model for a more advanced aircraft the team plans to build to circumnavigate the globe in 2015.

The plane made its first intercontinental flight, from Spain to Morocco, last June.

The aircraft runs on about the same power as a motor scooter, propelled by energy collected from 12,000 solar cells built into the wings that simultaneously recharge batteries with a storage capacity equivalent to an electric car.

In that way, the Solar Impulse can fly after dark on solar energy generated during daylight hours.

It is the first solar-powered aircraft capable of operating day and night without fuel to attempt a US coast-to-coast flight.

The current plane was designed for flights of up to 24 hours at a time, but the next model will have to allow for up to five days and five nights of flying by one pilot, a feat never yet accomplished.

In a move likely to please Australia’s farmers, who have long called for regulation in the sector to be slashed, the Productivity Commission will review red tape across the food supply chain.

The review will form part of the federal Labor government’s inaugural National Food Plan, which will be handed down on tomorrow.

Labor’s Agriculture Minister, Senator Joe Ludwig, said the plan, like the Asian Century White Paper, will outline how Australia could become one of the most efficiently-regulated countries in the world.

During consultation with industry stakeholders, regulatory burdens in the food industry emerged as a key concern for farmers and producers.

Senator Ludwig said the Productivity Commission review, to begin in 2014, will identify reforms that will most benefit the food industry and consumers.

In its submission to the food plan, the National Farmers Federation (NFF) said a review of the current regulatory system was essential to driving greater productivity across the supply chain.

It also welcomed the appointment of a “food and beverage supplier advocate” under the food plan, which would help Australian businesses access new markets at home and abroad.

“Maintaining our existing markets and creating new market opportunities is a major focus for Australian farmers,” NFF president Duncan Fraser said in a statement.

The government is yet to name to advocate, but stressed an experienced industry leader will fill the role.

Under the food plan, the government will also make $1.5 million worth of small grants available to help community food organisations get up and running.

Queensland’s conservative Liberal National Party state government has said water will be released from more flooded  mines into rivers because a pilot program showed there were no environmental concerns.

LNP deputy premier Jeff Seeney said water releases from four mines in the Fitzroy River catchment in central Queensland during the wet season had been thoroughly monitored.

The results of the pilot scheme indicate the releases have had no impact on the environment, drinking water or residents, he said.

The deputy premier said in previous years, mines had lost production because floodwaters hampered access.

The setbacks cost Queensland $750 million in royalties, he said.

Mr Seeney said a report to be presented to the Fitzroy Water Quality Advisory Group in Rockhampton gave the all clear to releasing floodwaters.

Water engineers had found an “absence of material affects on salinity levels downstream of the pilot scheme mine sites”,” he told state parliament.

“In other words, there was no harm to the environment.”

Mr Seeney said the government would work methodically to address remnant floodwater in mines in other parts of the state.

“We will build on this year’s pilot mine water release to enable all the mines with legacy water problems to deal with those problems over coming wet seasons,” he said.

He described opposition claims that water releases were harmful as “scare tactics”.

Australia’s Labor government and its conservative Liberal-National opposition are at odds over how to save the manufacturing industry, after Ford announced 1200 jobs would go when it shuts down its car building in Australia.

Ford Australia president and chief executive Bob Graziano said the company’s cost structure was “uncompetitive”, being double that in Europe and four times that in Asia.

Asked at the news conference announcing the company’s long-expected decision whether the carbon price had pushed up costs, Mr Graziano said it had been “a factor” but one of many.

Acting Industry Minister Craig Emerson said key materials in a car, aluminium, steel, glass and plastics, were shielded from the carbon price.

Extending her sympathy to Ford workers and their families, Labor Prime Minister Julia Gillard immediately announced $50 million to support affected workers and businesses in the Geelong and northern Melbourne areas and other parts of the automotive supply chain.

“For those working people as they absorb this news, I want to say to them we will make sure you are not left behind,” she told reporters in the New South Wales capital, Sydney.

Ford Australia will continue to produce its locally designed Falcon and Territory vehicles until October 2016 and support the vehicles with servicing and parts well into the future.

It will also retain 1500 workers in Research and Design and its network of more than 200 dealers as it moves to become a full importer of motor vehicles.

The prime minister said Ford had not approached governments for any additional support before making its closure decision, on top of the more than $1 billion it has received over the past decade.

She defended the $34 million provided in 2012 for a production upgrade, which would still be spent by Ford ahead of the closure, which it partly blamed on the high Australian dollar, which has made the cost of imported cars cheaper.

Ms Gillard said Australia remained a “strong performing economy”, with low taxes, unemployment and interest rates.

Opposition leader Tony Abbott, who backed the help for ousted workers, said the manufacturing industry was looking for lower taxes, less regulation and cheaper electricity.

“There is a whole range of factors in Ford’s decision, but obviously anything that adds to the cost of manufacturing in Australia is something that we don’t need and the carbon tax is one of those things,” Mr Abbott said.

Mr Abbott said it was a tragedy that Ford, unlike Toyota, never had an export plan.

“The answer for the car industry is a strong export plan,” he said.

Mr Abbott said a coalition government would support the car industry via a scheme similar to that under the last Liberal-National government.

This would effectively provide the sector with $1 billion from 2011 to 2015 and $1 billion from 2016 to 2020, $500 million less than Labor’s automotive transformation scheme is providing.

The Victorian government says it now has a stronger argument for more public service jobs to be moved to Geelong, such as the DisabilityCare Australia headquarters.

Leigh Diehm, from the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, said the government needed to minimise the flow-on effects on the “hundreds of thousands” of workers in vehicle components businesses.

Australian Greens Party deputy leader Adam Bandt said manufacturing could be boosted by a shift to electric cars and a high-speed rail networ

The United Nations has warned the world needs to wake up to the risk of a spike in natural disasters linked to climate change and strive to find ways to cut the human and economic cost.

“We live in a time of huge natural disasters which are made worse by climate change,” the UN’s deputy secretary-general, Jan Eliasson, told AFP Newsagency at the start of a three-day conference on risk reduction in Geneva.

“Natural disasters are not only becoming more frequent but are becoming more vehement,” he warned.

A report last week from the UN International Strategy for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) said that losses might have hit $2.5 trillion so far this century.

The UNISDR said that the figure, which factored in national-level disasters that are not reported to the world body, was 50 per cent higher than past estimates.

“So we have to think of this from the point of protecting people, and the price people pay. But we also have to think of economic losses and they are huge,” said Mr Eliasson.

“It’s not only a question of improving lives for people, but a question of creating sustainable economies,” he added.

UNISDR has gathered more than 4000 people in Geneva to share lessons on how to reduce the impact of disasters, from governments, aid agencies and the private sector.

“Often it seems that it takes a disaster to take prevention measures,” said Mr Eliasson, underlining the benefits of investing in disaster-risk reduction.

He pointed to personal experience of dealing with the aftermath of a cyclone that struck Bangladesh in 1991, drowning 191,000 people in less than an hour.

Bangladesh has since become a model for the risk-reduction sector thanks to its early-warning systems and shelters.

As an example last week’s Cyclone Mahasen claimed 48 lives despite wrecking tens of thousands of homes.

“By investing in disaster-risk reduction, we are laying the basis for better development,” he noted, adding that this helped the poor, who bear the brunt of catastrophes in any nation, whether developing or developed.

Experts repeatedly have warned that extremes like last year’s Hurricane Sandy in the Caribbean and United States could strike more often due to climate change, as rising global temperatures send weather patterns askew and governments wrangle over reining in emissions of greenhouse gases which are blamed for the phenomenon.

“Changes that are taking place, and that we’re concerned about, include an increase in heatwaves, both in intensity and frequency, increase in extreme precipitation events and also extreme sea-level related impacts because of the increase in Arctic sea level,” said Dr Rajendra Pachauri, head of the UN-backed Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

“Essentially, we have to put in place adaptation measures. Because whenever we have taken action, the measures reduce losses,” Dr Pachauri told AFP.

“But neither adaptation nor mitigation will be adequate for minimising the risks of climate change.

“Let’s not lose sight of the fact that to deal with this challenge we also have to mitigate the emissions of greenhouse gases,” he said.

Despite being dubbed a “loser” by United States presidential hopeful Mitt Romney, electric carmaker Tesla Motors has paid off a US government loan nine years early.

Tesla repaid the US Department of Energy (DOE) loan nine years earlier than required, using money raised last week in a stock and debt offering.

Reuters Newsagency reports the carmaker said that it wired US$451.8 million to repay the full loan with interest.

“I would like to thank the Department of Energy and the members of Congress and their staffs that worked hard to create the Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing program, and particularly the American taxpayer from whom these funds originate,” Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk said in a statement.

“I hope we did you proud.”

Republicans have criticised President Barack Obama administration’s support of new-technology companies, including struggling electric carmaker Fisker Automotive, as well as electric battery maker A123 Systems and solar panel maker Solyndra, with the later two having filed bankruptcy.

DOE officials heralded the Tesla payoff in a press release.

“When you’re talking about cutting-edge clean energy technologies, not every investment will succeed, but today’s repayment is the latest indication that the Energy Department’s portfolio of more than 30 loans is delivering big results for the American economy while costing far less than anticipated,” US Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said.

Mr Moniz said more than 90 per cent of the loan loss reserve Congress established remains intact, while losses represent about two per cent of the overall $34 billion portfolio.

DOE first offered loans to Tesla and other carmakers in June 2009, when the companies could not arrange financing through public markets during the recession.

The DOE’s $465 million loan, received in 2010, allowed Tesla to open its plant in California, and build the Model S electric car, which recently received a near-perfect score from Consumer Reports magazine and starts at US$70,000 before a federal tax credit.

The payoff was more good news for a company that reported its first quarterly profit earlier this month.

Mr Musk, a billionaire who owns 27.5 per cent of Tesla, earlier said that the company would repay the loan.

Tesla was funded privately through its first seven years after its 2003 founding, and it received the DOE loan as part of the advanced technology vehicle manufacturing program.

After making payments last year and the first quarter of this year, Tesla said it repaid the balance of its loan using a portion of the almost US$1 billion raised last week in stock and notes offerings.

At a summit in Brussels, European leaders have discussed the region’s reserves of shale gas, but the prospect of the continent enjoying a United States-style shale boom that drastically cuts energy costs remained elusive.

Arriving at the summit, British Prime Minister David Cameron, whose government is advancing plans to exploit his country’s shale gas deposits, said Europe could not afford to be left behind as the world scrambles to develop the resource.

Reuters newsagency reports he drew a comparison with the US, where years of extraction, using a much-criticised process of hydraulic ‘fracking’, has delivered record-low gas prices for consumers.

“We mustn’t be left behind in the global race,” Mr Cameron told Reuters.

“Europe has 75 per cent of the US’s shale resources, but America is drilling 100 times faster than Europe.”

For the European Union, there is no broad-based agreement on how shale gas should be developed.

Some of the EU’s 27 member states are completely opposed to any exploration, others in two minds and a few fully committed.

At the same time, the European Commission says environmental standards must be maintained, and potential investors in shale gas have to consider Europe’s more complex land-ownership and mineral extraction laws.

Other issues include the greater depth of EU shale gas reserves compared with the US, which can increase drilling costs by a factor of three, analysts report.

Reuters reports of EU nations, the eastern states of Poland and Lithuania are among the keenest to cut their reliance on imports of natural gas from Russia by developing shale gas of their own or importing it in liquid form from the US.

While gas prices in the EU are roughly four times higher than in the US, analysts say US prices will inevitably rise as production costs can exceed income from the gas.

Rex Tillerson, CEO of the largest US natural gas producer, Exxon Mobil, said: “We are all losing our shirts today,” when talking about natural gas prices, a comment that hints at the double-edged nature of the asset.

European Council President Herman Van Rompuy said Europe needed to tap all resources, but it was up to individual member states to make their own energy choices.

“Yes, this includes shale gas which could become part of the energy mix for some member states, perhaps less for others,” Mr Van Rompuy said.

Reuters reports apart from shale gas, summit documents also focus on completing the single European energy market.

In theory, better cross-border connections can help to lower prices and increase security of supply, but more than half a century after the founding of the EU, the single energy market is still incomplete.

The head of the United Nations anti-pollution division says governments have agreed to phase out the use of the toxic chemical HBCD, and restrict trade in four other dangerous substances.

“Adding these chemicals to the list is a good thing, because they are known to be quite bad chemicals,” Jim Willis, executive secretary of the Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm Conventions, said at the conclusion of a two-week international conference in the Swiss capital, Geneva.

The conference agreed to ban the production and use of HBCD from next year, albeit with a five-year grace period for its use as a flame-retardant in polystyrene building insulation.

HBCD, or hexabromocyclododecane, is also used in interior textile fittings for vehicles as well as packaging materials.

It is considered a “persistent organic pollutant”, chemicals which linger in the environment, enter the food chain and thereby pose risks to human health and nature.

Health campaigners say that among its ills is that it undermines the ability of children to learn and grow because it can harm thyroid function and brain development.

The Stockholm Convention, finalised in the Swedish capital in 2001, oversees such chemicals and to date has drawn in 179 nations.

A separate accord, the 1998 Rotterdam Convention, restricts trade in chemicals by obliging exporters to ensure that destination countries have been fully informed about the risks involved and have given an explicit green light for imports.

A total of 152 nations have signed up to that accord.

They agreed to add four chemicals to its list: the insecticide azinphos-methyl; perfluorooctanesulfonates, which can be used as water repellents; and two forms of flame-retardant, pentabromodiphenyl ether and octabromodiphenyl ether.

Delegates failed, however, to slap similar trade restrictions on the pesticide paraquat, in the face of resistance piloted by India.

In addition, they were unable to reach a consensus on adding chrysotile asbestos, which health experts say causes cancer, to the list.

Past efforts to do so were long stymied by Canada, a major producer until the government withdrew support to the industry last year.

With Ottawa taking a back seat, the baton was picked up by Zimbabwe and Russia, the globe’s top asbestos producer.

Unlike the 180-nation Basel Convention of 1989, which governs exports of toxic waste notably from rich to poor countries, the Stockholm and Rotterdam Conventions lack compliance mechanisms and have to rely on countries honouring their pledges.

The European Parliament has) approved a non-binding resolution calling for a mandatory European Union-wide share for renewables for 2030, but failed to set the target in the 40-45 per cent range.

The resolution says the EU should try to achieve a share of renewables in the overall energy mix greater than the European Commission’s current working assumption of 30 per cent.

This resolution was passed by a narrow majority of 339 to 336, with 19 abstentions.

However, a proposal that this target should be set between 40 per cent and 45 per cent failed, with 365 votes against to 284 in favour.

“This resolution is a starting point for future debates,” said German MEP Herbert Reul, who steered the resolution through Parliament.

“Renewable energy support needs to be seen from an EU perspective.

“We need to talk about how we are going to shape our climate policy after 2020 overall,” Mr Reul said in a statement.

Media reports say MEPs argue that it is essential to move the debate about a suitable EU system of support for renewable energy after 2020.

A long-term integrated strategy for promoting renewables at EU level should take account of the wide variety of support schemes now in place in the member states, as well as of regional and geographical differences, the resolution said.

Speaking on behalf of the promoters of an ambitious target for renewables, Irish MEP Jill Evans expressed her disappointment with the adopted text.

“I regret the failure of the European Parliament to set more ambitious, binding targets.

“Sourcing 40-45 per cent of our energy from renewable sources by 2030 is perfectly feasible, and we should be aiming higher,” she said in a statement.

Ms Evans said she hoped that the European Commission would take on board more ambitious renewable targets in its proposals on climate and energy.

The current working assumption of the EU executive is that the share of renewable energy in 2030 should be of 30 per cent.