A summary of today’s top climate and clean energy stories.
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UK: Liberal Democrat ministers are to relaunch the Green Deal – the flagship energy-saving scheme which has had a poor take-up – in a move which risks a further rift with the Conservative coalition partners. (Telegraph)
Brazil: Brazil will probably scale down its plans for new nuclear plants due to safety concerns following the 2011 radiation leak in Japan and pick up some of the slack with a “revolution” in wind power, the head of the government’s energy planning agency said. (Reuters)
Hong Kong: Hong Kong this part week fired up its first ever franchised, battery powered electric bus as part of a new program to provide better air quality for the millions of people who call it home. (Earth Techling)
UK: The Liberal Democrats have embraced nuclear power for the first time in their 25-year history on the grounds that it will help Britain tackle climate change. In a historic reversal of policy, hundreds of members on Sunday voted in favour of accepting a “limited” role for atomic power plants in a safe and affordable way. (Guardian)
Japan: Japan is set to be nuclear power-free, for just the third time in more than four decades, and with no firm date for re-starting an energy source that has provided about 30 percent of electricity to the world’s third-largest economy. (Reuters)
UK: Better predictions of how extreme weather events will be affected byclimate change and improvements in models to help understand more local impacts are set to improve understanding of global warming in the future, according to the UK’s Met Office. (Guardian)
UN: The head of the UN’s desertification convention wants a global agreement on controlling land degradation to be signed off by 2015. An economic assessment published by the UN in April revealed 12 million hectares of land are transformed into man made deserts on an annual basis, with associated costs of US$490 billion a year. (RTCC)
Gambia: Gambia’s Environment Minister Fatou Gaye says UN climate talks are “frustrating” and are failing her country. Talks on a global emissions reduction deal are set to resume in Warsaw this November, and Gaye says she is concerned at the lack of progress. (RTCC)