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BUSINESSES will be hit with a $13 billion bill in just the second year of the emissions trading scheme; but motorists will be spared for five years.

The measures will complement a $15 billion green power revolution, including new solar power and cleaner coal plants.

The Government has delayed introduction of its carbon pollution reduction scheme until 2011 to ease the burden on businesses struggling in the global slowdown. But Budget figures show its impact will be severe and immediate.

In 2011-12 the scheme is expected to raise almost $4.5 billion before spiralling to $12.99 billion in 2012-13.

Petrol has been effectively excluded until 2014, meaning there will be no increase in the price of fuel to deter people from driving.

Under the $4.5 billion Clean Energy Initiative, up to four solar power plants, three times the size of any existing solar plants in the world, will be built, each of them capable of producing as much electricity as a coal-fired plant.

Other large-scale measures announced yesterday include:

NEW $2 billion coal-fired power plants with carbon capture technology.

ESTABLISHMENT of a new Renewables Australia body with $465 million to support leading-edge renewable technology development.

Many of the environmental projects announced yesterday were pitched at a grass-roots level to stimulate jobs.

A $4 billion green sales pitch aims to get more than three million households to switch to energy-efficient homes and power. Rebates are offered for ceiling installation for 2.9 million homes, including rebates of $1600 for home-owners and $1000 for landlords or tenants.

More than 300,000 homes will also be helped to install solar hot water systems. Unexpected demand for the existing $8000 solar panel rebate has forced the Government to find another $270 million.

But the Green Loans program - a key initiative in last year's Budget - has been slashed after just one year. Only 75,000 homes will now be able to gain a $10,000 loan to make their homes environmentally friendly, rather than the 200,000 loans originally promised.

Environment Minister Peter Garrett said the immediate household measures would support thousands of tradespeople as well as boost Australia's climate change commitment.

"I encourage millions of eligible Australians to take advantage of this package as we roll it out across the nation's suburbs over the next few years," he said.

"The Energy Efficient Homes Package will improve the energy treating of Australian homes -- cutting energy waste, making them more comfortable, and helping households save up to 40 per cent of their electricity bills."

Builders have warned aspiring new home buyers to expect a $10,000 hike in the cost of building a new house after new energy requirements agreed last week.

The stricter criteria for new houses means the dream of home ownership is slipping beyond the reach of many Australians, master builders say.

'Improve exisiting stock': builders say that will make a huge difference in the average energy efficiency of Australian houses. (ABC TV News - file image)

Houses built after May 2011 will need to meet six-star energy efficiency requirements, as part of a plan to improve Australia's energy efficiency.

The decision to lift the standard from four or five stars to six was made at the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) meeting in Hobart last week.

In order to achieve a six-star rating, home designers recommend that people keep artificial heating and cooling to an absolute minimum and also try to limit the use of large windows.

The Government is also offering subsidised insulation and a solar hot water rebates as other ways of trying to improve the energy efficiency of Australian homes.

But builders say there is no way to escape major price rises.

The Master Builders Association of Victoria says even with careful planning, the high energy efficiency standards will cost people an average of $10,000 to build a new house.

The decision "will go down as one of the most significant blows to housing affordability in the past decade," deputy executive director Radley de Silva said.

"Despite... deteriorating housing affordability, rising rents and shrinking family budgets, the Government has decided to place environmental symbolism ahead of tackling the housing affordability challenge."

Making new homes efficient is important, but improving the environmental credentials of existing homes would have huge benefits, Mr de Silva said.

"There are currently two million homes in Victoria; each with an average energy efficiency rating of just 2.2 stars," he said.

"If the Government is serious about tackling sustainability, they would be aggressively pursuing the sustainability level of these homes. Put simply, no effective response to our community's sustainability challenge can afford to ignore 92 per cent of Victoria's housing stock."

He says with building demand in sharp decline and speculation about the first home owner boost ending, the timing of this announcement could not be worse.

Mayor Manny Diaz today announced a groundbreaking energy initiative that proposes to use federal economic stimulus funds to help spur a $200 million investment in "Smart Grid" technology and renewable energy over the next two years.

The initiative, called "Energy Smart Miami," would help Miami-Dade County consumers save money by giving them more choices over how they consume and conserve electrical power. It would also generate near-term demand for "green collar jobs" to support its implementation, while further solidifying Miami's national leadership in championing the responsible environmental practices needed to address the longer-term challenge of addressing climate change, which poses a significant threat to Florida and its coastal regions.

Energy Smart Miami has the potential to be the most extensive and holistic Smart Grid implementation in the country. The backbone of Energy Smart Miami will be the deployment of more than 1 million advanced wireless "Smart Meters" to every home and most businesses in Miami-Dade County. These meters will give Florida Power & Light Company (FPL) customers more information and control over their electricity usage while also providing FPL with information that will enhance system efficiency and reliability. Implementation of the Smart Meters will be based on open network architecture, allowing other providers to develop and deploy new applications that could, for example, help consumers better manage the electricity usage of their air conditioning and appliances.

"The Energy Smart Miami Initiative is an investment in the future of our city, our residents and our neighborhoods, and is an important step toward creating the green jobs of the future and building a clean energy economy," Mayor Diaz said. "This initiative will contribute to the Obama administration's goals of investing in alternative and renewable energy, ending our addiction to foreign oil, addressing the global climate crisis and creating millions of new green jobs. I look forward to working with our partners in the private sector to create a model of putting the economic stimulus plan in action and breaking ground right away."

The project's sponsors are proud to have the support of South Florida native Carol Browner, the former Environmental Protection Agency Administrator who now serves as President Barack Obama's point person on energy and climate change and U.S. Representative Kendrick Meek of Miami, among others.

"With the Recovery Act, President Obama demonstrated his commitment to developing a bigger, smarter, stronger electric grid that will not only reduce our energy costs but also reduce our energy use," Browner said. "There's no time to waste. It's time for action. I commend Mayor Diaz for creating a plan that will put these recovery dollars to work and make Miami a Smart Grid model for cities across our country. With projects like Energy Smart Miami, we can stimulate the economy today and build a brighter, cleaner tomorrow. It's truly a win-win for Miami and for America."

"The benefits of the federal stimulus are two fold here in Florida; it will help revive our state's economy by assisting families who are facing unprecedented financial challenges. It will also lay the foundation for a more prosperous future," Meek said. "By investing economic stimulus funds in Smart Grid technology, Energy Smart Miami is breaking new ground. Miami-Dade County consumers will be equipped with information that can ultimately help them save money while also giving them more control over their electricity usage."

Energy Smart Miami represents an alliance of local government and nationally recognized energy leaders. Joining the Mayor at Miami Dade College's downtown campus for the announcement today were FPL Group Chairman and CEO Lewis Hay III, GE Chairman and CEO Jeffrey R. Immelt, Cisco Systems Chairman and CEO John T. Chambers and Silver Spring Networks Chairman, CEO and President Scott Lang.

Florida Power & Light Company, a subsidiary of FPL Group and the nation's No. 1 utility in energy efficiency programs, is leading the strategy and deployment of Smart Grid technologies for the project. Florida Power & Light provides electricity to 4.5 million customer accounts in the state of Florida, including more than 1 million in Miami-Dade County. GE, a world leader in power generation, distribution, and management technology, will supply key components of the project, which include Smart Meters and may extend to advanced applications and smarter control systems. Silver Spring Networks, a leading provider of networking solutions for the electric grid, will provide field proven, open standards-based, secure wireless network communications. Cisco, the worldwide leader in networking technologies, will help design and implement a secure and intelligent communications platform within the county's transmission and distribution grid and provide customers with home energy management information and controls.

"Through Energy Smart Miami, FPL will significantly accelerate and expand our capital investment program to help Miami-Dade County customers more quickly realize the benefits of an intelligent electrical infrastructure. The City of Miami is a natural focal point given the Mayor's longtime environmental advocacy and leadership," said FPL Group's Lew Hay. "However, Energy Smart Miami represents the beginning, not the end, as it is the cornerstone of a $700 million investment in Smart Meters to every residential FPL customer in Florida."

"GE is committed to delivering energy-efficient technologies to ensure a more sustainable energy future. Energy Smart Miami will be an outstanding example of 21st century technology enabling our vision of a more diverse energy portfolio supported by a dynamic, flexible and smarter energy grid. We congratulate the mayor and citizens of Miami for committing to a cleaner, energy-efficient future. This is a great example for cities across America -- and the world," said GE's Jeff Immelt.

"An intelligent energy infrastructure can accelerate American leadership, create jobs, help increase our standard of living and drive sustainable growth," said John Chambers of Cisco. "Cisco believes that as the U.S. builds out a smart, secure energy grid for the 21st century, networking technology will serve as the platform and public-private partnerships will be key to the success. We are proud to be part of this important effort in Miami."

"Silver Spring Networks has built the leading open networking platform for the Smart Grid, and we are honored to broaden the scope of an already successful partnership with Florida Power & Light through Energy Smart Miami," said Silver Spring Networks' Scott Lang. "Through the leadership of Mayor Diaz and Mr. Hay, Energy Smart Miami will empower the people of Miami for years to come."

Energy Smart Miami is estimated to generate demand for 800 to 1,000 jobs, both directly and indirectly involved in the deployment, during the two-year implementation period. The initiative includes a wide range of technologies that improve electricity delivery and help customers better manage their electricity usage. Highlights include:

• Smart-Grid Automation and Communications – More like the Internet than an electric network, the new Smart Grid system will connect Smart Meters, high-efficiency transformers, digitized substations, power generation and other equipment through a centralized information and control system. This will continuously monitor status, identify and automatically fix or dispatch teams to outages and provide useful information to improve reliability, efficiency and productivity from power generation through consumption.
• Smart Meters – Through the Energy Smart Miami initiative, Smart Meters will be installed in more than 1 million homes and most businesses in Miami-Dade County. Over the next five years, FPL intends to expand the project to a total of more than 4 million homes in Florida. The cost of expanding Smart Meters outside of Miami-Dade County represents a $500 million investment in addition to the $200 million proposed in support of Energy Smart Miami. Smart Meters serve as a key interface in a system that combines a number of elements – intelligent meters, a two-way communications network using open standards, and sophisticated operating systems and databases. As a result, customers will be able to go online and monitor how much energy they have used by the month, day or hour. With this information, FPL customers will have the ability to lower their electric bills by giving them substantially more information to make decisions about their electricity consumption. Ultimately, Smart Meters and the network that connects them will provide consumers with the ability to see and manage individual devices consuming electricity in their home such as air conditioning and appliances. Smart Meters will also provide FPL with information that will help it to operate more efficiently and enhance reliability.
• Renewable Energy Integration – Several local universities and schools will receive solar power installations to help meet energy needs with renewable, non-polluting technologies. Battery installations will enable some solar locations to store power for use during times of peak demand.
• Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEVs) – 300 plug-in hybrid electric vehicles will be added to the FPL fleet serving Miami-Dade County. The PHEVs will be powered through approximately 50 new charging stations. Additional PHEVs will be rolled out in trials at Miami Dade College, Florida International University, the University of Miami and the City of Miami.
• Consumer Technology Trials – Using the capabilities of installed Smart Meters, the initiative will conduct studies of additional consumer communications and empowerment systems to determine which delivers the greatest energy savings and consumer satisfaction. The initial trials in approximately 1,000 households in Miami-Dade will test several different systems, including:
• In-home energy displays or "eco-panels" to help manage electrical loads and lower power use during peak periods
• Smart appliances that can communicate with Smart Meters to reschedule high-energy functions or switch to a lower-consumption mode during peak demand periods
• Programmable and smart-meter-controllable thermostats
• Demand management and demand response software that will manage consumer appliances, lighting and other devices using Smart Meters.

The partners comprising Energy Smart Miami's expert implementation team have worked together extensively to ensure that the initiative meets President Obama's criteria as a "shovel-ready" project to qualify for matching funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, commonly known as the federal stimulus package. Contingent on receiving this federal support, Energy Smart Miami could begin later this year and be completed by the end of 2011.

The stimulus package specifically reserves federal matching grants for advanced electrical infrastructure and related initiatives targeting energy efficiency, energy reliability and renewable energy.

For more information, please visit www.EnergySmartMiami.com.

BENTON HARBOR, Mich. -- Whirlpool is positioning itself to take advantage of the growing interest in Smart Grid technology with last week’s announcement that all of its electronically controlled appliances will be Smart Grid compatible by 2015.

The home appliance manufacturer, famous for brands that include KitchenAid, Maytag, Amana, and its namesake, Whirlpool, among others, will form public-private partnerships to create an open, global standard for home appliances to transmit and receive signals by 2010. Once the standard is in place, the company will roll out compatible, electronically controlled appliances over the next five years.

The partnerships also will design policies that reward and incent manufacturers, utilities and consumers for offering and using the peak demand reduction abilities.

"Whirlpool believes this bridging technology is so important that we are going to invite the appliance industry, the utility industry, policymakers, NGOs, and relevant technology companies to come together at the upcoming Copenhagen climate change conference to discuss how we can accelerate the adoption of these new capabilities," Bracken Darrell, Whirlpool’s executive vice president, said while announcing the company’s new goal at the EE Global Forum and Exhibition in Paris.

The modernization of the electricity grid to enable two-way communication and real-time monitoring is hailed as a way to both improve efficiency and accommodate the deployment of renewable energy systems that will feed energy back to the grid. President Barack Obama’s $787 billion stimulus bill includes $4.5 billion for Smart Grid projects.

One of the first projects expected to apply for the funds is a $200 million project announced a few weeks ago involving the city of Miami, General Electric, Cisco, Florida Power and Light, and Silver Spring Networks. The partnership aims to deploy smart meters to every home and majority of businesses in Miami Dade County.

Without more efficient consumer electronics, the world will need to build hundreds of gigawatts worth of new power plants to run the exploding number of electronic gadgets, according to the International Energy Agency.

The Paris-based energy industry watchdog on Wednesday published its "Gadgets and Gigawatts" report, saying that consumer electronics already account for 15 percent of households' electricity bills and is rising rapidly.

Around the world, a growing number of people are acquiring electronics, from mobile phones to televisions, which means the total amount of electricity from electronics is poised to explode in the next two decades.

The IEA estimates that the yearly energy consumed from IT and consumer electronics is on pace to double by 2020 and triple by 2030 to 1,700 terawatt-hours. That would be the equivalent of the combined residential electricity consumption of Japan and the United States in a year.

It's clear that there is technology available to make devices more energy efficient, the IEA said. Because consumers want a long run-time, mobile devices are already more efficient than appliances that run from outlets.

"This example shows us what can be achieved. Where no such commercial drivers exist, governments must step in to ensure that we make the most of every energy efficiency opportunity," IEA Executive Director Nobuo Tanaka said in a statement.

He said that governments should "urgently implement" energy-efficiency policies. The biggest opportunity for energy savings improvements from consumer electronics companies is "making hardware and software work together more effectively to ensure that energy is only used when, and to the extent needed," the IEA said.

Senior doctors today published a report warning that climate change is the biggest threat to global health of the 21st century.

Rising global temperatures would have a catastrophic effect on human health, the doctors said, and patterns of infection would change, with insect-borne diseases such as malaria and dengue fever spreading more easily.

Heatwaves such as occurred in Europe in 2003, which caused up to 70,000 "excess" deaths, will become more common, as will hurricanes, cyclones and storms, causing flooding and injuries.

"We have not just underestimated but completely neglected and ignored this issue," said Richard Horton, editor of the Lancet, which published the report commissioned from University College London. "This has not been an issue on the agenda of any professional body in health in the last 10 years in any significant way. This report is one of the stepping stones in changing that culture within the health sector. It is the biggest employer in Britain and it should be a leading voice in the debate."

The lead author of the report, Prof Anthony Costello, a paediatrician who works on maternal and newborn health in the developing world, said his own views had changed. "I thought there were other priorities 18 months ago," he said. Now he believed that mitigating the impact of rising temperatures was urgent. "Every year we delay, the costs go up. We are setting up a world for our children and grandchildren that may be extremely turbulent."

The biggest impact could be in food and water shortages, which in the past have led to war and mass migration.

Prof Hugh Montgomery, of UCL's institute for human health and performance, who was one of the report's authors, noted that Mikhael Gorbachev had linked 21 recent conflicts to water instability.

The report says that the poorest people in the world will be worst affected. Although the carbon footprint of the poorest billion people is about 3% of the world's total footprint, loss of life is expected to be 500 times greater in Africa than in the wealthy countries.

Despite improvements in health, 10 million children still die every year, more than 200 million children under five are not developing as well as they should, 800 million people are hungry, and 1,500 million people do not have clean drinking water. All those things could worsen very significantly, the report says.

The impact of heatwaves, flooding and global food shortages will be felt in Britain too, the authors warned. "This is an immediate danger. It is going to affect you and it will certainly affect your children. While there is the injustice that the poorest will be worst affected, you will be affected too," said Montgomery.

The report says evidence on greenhouse gas emissions, temperature and sea-level rises, the melting of ice-sheets, ocean acidification and extreme climatic events suggests the forecasts by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2007 might be too conservative. The UK target, to limit global warming to two degrees more, is unlikely to be achieved.

Costello, however, said the message from the report was not entirely negative. "There is an awful lot we can do," he said. Reducing carbon emissions would encourage people to cut use of vehicles, and if that led to more walking and cycling it would tend to lower stress levels, reduce obesity, and lessen heart disease, lung disease and stroke risks.

Rising sea levels that could wipe whole nations off the map and displace scores of millions of people are being overlooked in global climate change talks, island countries said Tuesday.

Major emitters are pushing for greenhouse gas emissions cuts that are too low to prevent devastating sea rises, representatives said at the World Ocean Conference in Indonesia’s Manado city.

“Dealing with environmental refugees will have a much more serious impact on the global economy and global security in fact than what wars have ever done to this planet,” said Rolph Payet, a presidential adviser from the African island nation of the Seychelles.

Nations under threat from even small rises in sea levels include the Pacific island states of Kiribati and Tuvalu, while major cities and vast tracts of heavily populated coastline from Bangladesh to West Africa could also go under this century.

The five-day conference has attracted hundreds of officials and experts from 70 countries and is being billed as a prelude to December talks on a successor to the expiring Kyoto Protocol.

Payet said there had been “zero” serious discussions in top international forums on how to deal with massive flows of “climate refugees” from low-lying and drought-prone areas.

The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicted in 2007 that up to 150 million people could be displaced by the effects of climate change by 2050, which include sea level rises of as much as 59 centimetres (23 inches).

The Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) is pushing for 85 percent cuts in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. But Payet said the December talks in the Danish capital Copenhagen look set to produce an emissions cut target that would be too low to avert disaster. Nations have also avoided discussing who will accept millions of people fleeing rising waters and droughts and how to resettle whole nations which could disappear under the waves this century.

“We have been talking about war refugees, crisis refugees, but not environmental refugees ... it is not an accepted UN word,” Payet said.

Grenada’s UN ambassador and AOSIS chief Dessima Williams said developing countries and small island states were already bearing the brunt of climate change despite producing few emissions.

“Our last hurricane was 49 years ago, and then in 2004 Grenada received a category five hurricane and nine months later a category four hurricane and very changed weather patterns,” Williams said.

“Flash floods, sea surges, all these things are going to devastate whole communities, whole economies of small countries,” she said.

However, consensus among major emitters is growing on the need for deep emissions cuts, she said.

The European Parliament has endorsed a non-binding plan to cut the bloc’s emissions by 80 percent by mid-century and President Barack Obama has proposed his country make an 83 percent cut.

But official reductions targets remain lower and the details of any global agreement that would include major developing nation emitters such as China remain unknown.

The Manado conference is being touted as the first major talks on the relationship between climate change and ocean problems such as rising seas, plunging fish stocks and alarming rises in ocean acidity.

Delegates aim to agree on a joint declaration aimed at influencing the direction of talks on a post-Kyoto climate change plan in the Danish capital Copenhagen.

Russia raised the prospect of war in the Arctic yesterday as nations struggle for control of the world’s dwindling energy reserves.

The country’s new national security strategy identified the intensifying battle for ownership of vast untapped oil and gas fields around its borders as a source of potential military conflict within a decade.

“The presence and potential escalation of armed conflicts near Russia’s national borders, pending border agreements between Russia and several neighbouring nations, are the major threats to Russia’s interests and border security,” stated the document, which analysed security threats up to 2020.

“In a competition for resources it cannot be ruled out that military force could be used to resolve emerging problems that would destroy the balance of forces near the borders of Russia and her allies.”

The Kremlin has insisted that it is not “militarising the Arctic” but its warnings of armed conflict suggest that it is willing to defend its interests by force if necessary as global warming makes exploitation of the region’s energy riches more feasible.

The United States, Norway, Canada and Denmark are challenging Russia’s claim to a section of the Arctic shelf, the size of Western Europe, which is believed to contain billions of tonnes of oil and gas.

An earlier Kremlin document declared the Arctic a strategic resource for Russia and said that development of its energy reserves by 2020 was a vital national objective. It set out plans to establish army bases along the Arctic frontier to “guarantee military security in different military-political situations”.

The strategy published yesterday was approved by President Medvedev and drawn up by the Russian Security Council, which includes the Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin, and heads of the military and intelligence agencies.

Mr Putin accused the West last year of coveting Russian energy reserves, saying: “Many conflicts, foreign policy actions and diplomatic moves smell of oil and gas. Behind all that there often is a desire to enforce an unfair competition and ensure access to our resources.”

Nikolai Patrushev, who heads the Security Council, once flew to the North Pole to plant a Russian flag. He was in charge of the FSB, the federal security service, when Mr Putin was President and created a special Arctic Directorate in 2004 to advance Moscow’s interests in the region. Dmitri Rogozin, the Russian Ambassador to Nato, warned the military alliance in March not to meddle in the Arctic, saying that there was “nothing for them to do there”.

The Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, also criticised Norway, a Nato member, over military exercises based on “a conflict over access to resources”. Norway responded that Russia was expanding its military presence in the region.

A team of explorers led by Artur Chilingarov, the Kremlin’s special representative to the region, used mini-submarines to plant a titanium flag on the Arctic seabed in 2007 to stake Russia’s claim to the massive Lomonosov Ridge.

Russia argues that the ridge is an extension of its territory, which justifies its ownership of 1.2 million sq km (465,000 square miles) of the Arctic. It plans to stake its claim in a submission to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

The strategy document predicted that the struggle over energy resources would increasingly dominate international relations. It identified the Barents Sea and Central Asia, where Russia and China are vying for influence, as further areas of friction.

The Caspian Sea is critical to the European Union’s hopes of breaking its dependence on Russian gas by building export routes for alternative supplies from Central Asia. Russia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Iran are locked in talks on dividing the seabed and its energy riches.

The strategy paper also condemned as unacceptable threats to Russian securityAmerican plans for a missile defence shield in Eastern Europe and the expansion of Nato into the former Soviet republics of Ukraine and Georgia.

Dabancheng windfarm outside Urumqi in the Western Chinese province of Xinjiang.

But today the same winds that struck fear into the traders of the Silk Road, swallowing whole caravans in blinding storms of dust, are being used to power plans for a new, green revolution for China's energy-hungry economy.

At Dabancheng, a few miles outside the city, great forests of windmills stretch to the horizon, their blades beating out a lazy rhythm that belies the sudden urgency with which China's rulers are now investing in renewable energy.

The speed with which China is now ramping up its commitment to alternative energies has caught even the most optimistic analysts by surprise, with new green edicts being issued from Beijing on an almost weekly basis.

Last week officials pledged to generate 100 gigawatts of electricity from wind power by 2020, more than tripling the original target of 30GW laid down in a national energy strategy published just 18 months ago.

"The pace of change is unimaginable from just three or four years ago," shouts Yan Weijiang, a director of the Xinjiang Wind Energy Company over the roar of the wind. "If you had talked to me in 2003 or 2004 I would not have believed this was possible."

Mr Yan, who started his career working in coal-fired electricity generation with the state giant PetroChina, said the introduction of a Renewable Energy Law in 2006 offering state subsidies for wind power had been the initial "game-changer" after years of slow growth.

Public attitudes in China towards the environment have also started to change. In the wind-fields of Dabancheng the first 13 windmills, bought from Denmark and erected in 1989, are now used primarily as a tourist attraction.

On the dusty road into Urumqi Chinese families stop to have their pictures taken in front of giant white propellers, and some newly married couples even come to the wind farms for their official wedding photographs.

"They're beautiful and they are also a sign of China's great progress and development," said Tang Qinghui, a tourist who had stopped to picture his wife and child with the turbines, "these windmills show a commitment to a new, cleaner future for our country."

Nuclear, solar and hydroelectricity are also being lined up for massive new investment through China's £400bn stimulus package, with 2020 targets for nuclear power raised from 40 gigawatts to 60 gigawatts, with some officials even talking of aiming for 70GW.

Investment is also being poured into China's electricity grid to enable more renewable sources to be connected, while planners say they want to reduce carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP by 50 per cent by 2020.

After years in which China put economic growth before almost all environmental considerations, analysts now see a step-change in attitudes from the central government backed by hard cash and the raw political muscle of China's command economy.

"The old belief that China could follow the model of Western industrial nations by making a mess today and paying for the clean-up tomorrow now appears to be dead," said Yang Ailun, director of Greenpeace's climate and energy campaign in China.

"China's leaders now realise that for long-term growth to be sustainable they will have to both reduce power usage by finding greater efficiencies and boost the amount of renewable energy entering the national grid."

The desire to take a greener path is not confined to China's all-powerful government.

Activists say there is growing grass-roots support for change among the Chinese public, spurred by a growing realisation that ordinary people are paying a heavy price for China's old "dirty" development model.

Information is filtering into the wider public consciousness, as recently when the China Daily newspaper published research from the government's National Population and Family estimating that 10 per cent of birth defects in China were caused by pollution – or one million deformed babies every year.

"The public is now waking up to these problems," says Ma Jun, an environmental activist who runs a website naming and shaming companies and provincial governments that allow pollution, "and public pressure will be one of the most important drivers of change".

In Beijing he cites the efforts to clean up the air pollution ahead of last year's Olympic Games as just one example of how the Chinese public's mindset is rapidly changing.

After the games there were several popular campaigns by residents who had enjoyed clean air for the first time in a decade to keep polluting factories closed and retain traffic restrictions.

"People had come to accept that it was impossible to have blue skies over Beijing, but during the Olympics they suddenly saw that wasn't true. Now they don't want to go back to the old polluted ways," said Mr Ma.

Elsewhere in Beijing the government has installed solar panels to power street lights and, along the rooftops of the city's remaining courtyard houses can be seen the winding pipes of solar water heaters, yet further evidence of change.

The sheer size and speed of China's new green investment has provoked some soul-searching in America, the world's second largest polluter after China, where a series of reports have highlighted the discrepancies in spending.

According to a report by the Centre for American Progress, in 2009 and 2010 China will now spend more than six times America's green stimulus spending as a percentage of their respective economies – or £8.6m an hour.

However for all the headline-grabbing targets, sceptics argue that China best efforts will still not be enough to make a meaningful dent in absolute emissions.

Even if China achieves its target of 15 per cent renewable energy by 2020, projections show that energy demand will double in the same period leaving China still more than 70 per cent reliant on dirty coal-fired power stations.

Sceptics also point out that since China's provincial leaders are still assessed on the basis of economic rather than environmental criteria, leaving little incentive for them to embrace the new green orders of central government.

However, many international climate change analysts see new reasons for optimism. A report by the independent lobbyists The Climate Group says it believes that China could now achieve a "second, green miracle" to match the "economic miracle" of the last 20 years.

The key will be the power of China's government to force through green measures and absorb the financial losses of early investment in green technologies – wind power is currently twice as expensive as coal power – in a way that Western governments cannot.

The "litmus test", the report says, will be how soon after 2020 China can start to reduce absolute emissions and hit the global target of emitting two tons of CO2 per capita by 2050 – compared with 5.1 tons in China today, 8.6 tons in Europe and 19.4 tons in the US.

It will be a massive challenge, but this week further optimism was generated by reports that China's was, for the first time, actively considering setting emissions targets ahead of negotiations for a successor to the Kyoto treaty in Copenhagen later this year.

Although decisions have not been taken, analysts saw the reports as yet further evidence that China, after years of arguing that the West should clean up its own act before it took steps of its own, was preparing to take an unprecedented lead at Copenhagen.

"The fact that the country's leadership is now putting a focus on climate change... gives us great hope that China could achieve a second miracle 30 years from now by moving to a low carbon economy," wrote Steve Howard, CEO of The Climate Group.

"But this time, we believe that China will no longer be a developing country following where others have led, but a pioneer leading the way."

Doug Kanter for The New York Times A poster announces a power plant to be built in Tianjin, China.

TIANJIN, China — China’s frenetic construction of coal-fired power plants has raised worries around the world about the effect on climate change. China now uses more coal than the United States, Europe and Japan combined, making it the world’s largest emitter of gases that are warming the planet.

But largely missing in the hand-wringing is this: China has emerged in the past two years as the world’s leading builder of more efficient, less polluting coal power plants, mastering the technology and driving down the cost.

While the United States is still debating whether to build a more efficient kind of coal-fired power plant that uses extremely hot steam, China has begun building such plants at a rate of one a month.

Construction has stalled in the United States on a new generation of low-pollution power plants that turn coal into a gas before burning it, although Energy Secretary Steven Chu said Thursday that the Obama administration might revive one power plant of this type. But China has already approved equipment purchases for just such a power plant, to be assembled soon in a muddy field here in Tianjin.

“The steps they’ve taken are probably as fast and as serious as anywhere in power-generation history,” said Hal Harvey, president of ClimateWorks, a group in San Francisco that helps finance projects to limit global warming.

Western countries continue to rely heavily on coal-fired power plants built decades ago with outdated, inefficient technology that burn a lot of coal and emit considerable amounts of carbon dioxide. China has begun requiring power companies to retire an older, more polluting power plant for each new one they build.

Cao Peixi, the president of the China Huaneng Group, the country’s biggest state-owned electric utility and the majority partner in the joint venture building the Tianjin plant, said his company was committed to the project even though it would cost more than conventional plants.

“We shouldn’t look at this project from a purely financial perspective,” he said. “It represents the future.”

Without doubt, China’s coal-fired power sector still has many problems, and global warming gases from the country are expected to continue increasing. China’s aim is to use the newest technologies to limit the rate of increase.

Only half the country’s coal-fired power plants have the emissions control equipment to remove sulfur compounds that cause acid rain, and even power plants with that technology do not always use it. China has not begun regulating some of the emissions that lead to heavy smog in big cities.

Even among China’s newly built plants, not all are modern. Only about 60 percent of the new plants are being built using newer technology that is highly efficient, but more expensive.

With greater efficiency, a power plant burns less coal and emits less carbon dioxide for each unit of electricity it generates. Experts say the least efficient plants in China today convert 27 to 36 percent of the energy in coal into electricity. The most efficient plants achieve an efficiency as high as 44 percent, meaning they can cut global warming emissions by more than a third compared with the weakest plants.

In the United States, the most efficient plants achieve around 40 percent efficiency, because they do not use the highest steam temperatures being adopted in China. The average efficiency of American coal-fired plants is still higher than the average efficiency of Chinese power plants, because China built so many inefficient plants over the past decade. But China is rapidly closing the gap by using some of the world’s most advanced designs.

After relying until recently on older technology, “China has since become the major world market for advanced coal-fired power plants with high-specification emission control systems,” the International Energy Agency said in a report on April 20.

China’s improvements are starting to have an effect on climate models. In its latest annual report last November, the I.E.A. cut its forecast of the annual increase in Chinese emissions of global warming gases, to 3 percent from 3.2 percent, in response to technological gains, particularly in the coal sector, even as the agency raised slightly its forecast for Chinese economic growth. “It’s definitely changing the baseline, and that’s being taken into account,” said Jonathan Sinton, a China specialist at the energy agency.

But by continuing to rely heavily on coal, which supplies 80 percent of its electricity, China ensures that it will keep emitting a lot of carbon dioxide; even an efficient coal-fired power plant emits twice the carbon dioxide of a natural gas-fired plant.

Perhaps the biggest question now is how much further China can go beyond the recent steps. In particular, how fast will it move toward power plants that capture their emissions and store them underground or under the seafloor?

That technology could, in theory, create power plants that contribute virtually nothing to global warming. Many countries hope to develop such plants, though progress has been halting; Energy Secretary Chu has promised steps to speed up the technology in the United States.

China has just built a small, experimental facility near Beijing to remove carbon dioxide from power station emissions and use it to provide carbonation for beverages, and the government has a short list of possible locations for a large experiment to capture and store carbon dioxide. But so far, it has no plans to make this a national policy.

China is making other efforts to reduce its global warming emissions. It has doubled its total wind energy capacity in each of the past four years, and is poised to pass the United States as soon as this year as the world’s largest market for wind power equipment. China is building considerably more nuclear power plants than the rest of the world combined, and these do not emit carbon dioxide after they are built.

But coal remains the cheapest energy source in China by a wide margin. China has the world’s third-largest coal reserves, after the United States and Russia.

“No matter how much renewable or nuclear is in the mix, coal will remain the dominant power source,” said Ashok Bhargava, a China energy expert at the Asian Development Bank in Manila.

Another problem is that China has finally developed the ability to build high-technology power plants only at the end of a national binge of building lower-tech coal-fired plants. Construction is now slowing because of the economic slump.

By adopting “ultra-supercritical” technology, which uses extremely hot steam to achieve the highest efficiency, and by building many identical power plants at the same time, China has cut costs dramatically through economies of scale. It now can cost a third less to build an ultra-supercritical power plant in China than to build a less efficient coal-fired plant in the United States.

Dramatic reversal in US position under Obama has brought Beijing to the table on emission cuts, says UK climate secretary

China is ready to abandon its resistance to limits on its carbon emissions and wants to reach an international deal to fight global warming, the Guardian has learned.

According to Britain's climate change secretary, Ed Miliband, who met senior officials in Beijing this week, China is ready to "do business" with developed countries to reach an agreement to replace the Kyoto treaty.

Miliband said he was encouraged by the change in tone since late last year in the country that emits more greenhouse gases than any other. "I think they're up for a deal. I get the strong impression that they want an agreement," he told the Guardian.

"They see the impact of climate change on China and they know the world is moving towards a low-carbon economy and see the business opportunities that will come with that."

The shift in the Chinese position significantly improves the chances of an agreement being reached when world leaders meet in Copenhagen in December to negotiate a deal that scientists say is critical if dangerous warming is to be avoided.

While Britain and the European Union – which have a large historical responsibility for greenhouse gas emissions – are pushing for ambitious reduction targets at home, no global climate deal will be possible in Copenhagen without the agreement of China and the US, which together are responsible for more than 40% of the world's annual carbon emissions.

China's official negotiating position is unchanged, but the government is understood to be preparing a set of targets up to and beyond 2020 to lower the country's "carbon intensity". This translates to cutting the emissions needed to produce each unit of economic growth.

Miliband said Barack Obama's pledge to reduce US emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 has unblocked the international negotiating process.

"China used to think the developed world is not serious. That's what they were saying [at UN talks] in December," he said. "But now they know the US is on the pitch and ready to engage with them. It has made a real difference to what China is saying."

His comments echoed the message from Chinese officials. Su Wei, a senior negotiator, told the Guardian last month that the US had made a "substantive change" under the Obama administration.

"The message we have got is that the current US administration takes climate change seriously, that it recognises its historical responsibility and that it has the capacity to help developing countries address climate change," Su said.

But while the tone may have changed, there is still a long way to go before agreement can be reached on specifics.

China wants developed nations to commit to more ambitious reduction targets, to share low-carbon technology and to set up a UN fund that would buy related intellectual property rights for use across the world. Beijing's position is complicated by the fact that it already owns a large share of the patents for wind and solar energy in developed nations.

Europe and the US accept the Chinese economy should be allowed to grow further, improving the living standards of its millions of poor, before it makes overall emissions reductions. Instead, the western nations are pushing for strong measures to improve efficiency and establish caps for certain industries. One possibility being considered by Chinese officials is to set a carbon intensity goal up to 2040 that would include energy efficiency, renewable energy, transport and afforestation.

"It would be very welcome for China to set a commitment for carbon intensity," said Miliband. "It would send a signal around the world."

He was visiting Minqin county, a remote area in north-western China threatened by desertification and drought. Along with the melting of the Himalayan glaciers, the spread of deserts and the shortage of water have highlighted the destructive impact of unsustainable development and climate change.

"We're very concerned about climate change," said Xu Wenshan, the deputy mayor of Wuwei, at a welcome banquet. "Living in such an ecologically fragile area, we will feel the impact directly if there is a further rise in the temperature."

Jim Watson, of the UK's Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, said it had become the mainstream view in China that global warming was caused by human activity, which was not the view five years ago.

"We see significant policy shifts and encouraging developments in technology, for example phenomenal development of wind power and plug-in cars. That could be a sign of things to come," he said. "My impression is that although the negotiators haven't moved ground officially, there are a hell of a lot of new ideas. They are very interested in low-carbon economy."

Last month, the Tyndale centre published research showing that it was possible for China to begin reducing its total emissions from 2020.

Government officials say that is unrealistic and China has so far resisted announcing a target for when emissions might peak. But the authorities tend towards the later end of the various academic forecasts of between 2020 and 2040.

Watson noted that if emissions are measured on a historical per-capita basis, China is 78th in the world rather than first.

Making alternative fuel becomes more efficient with dual-catalyst system: UNC-Rutgers study

CHAPEL HILL — As the United States' oil reserves dwindle, some say the nation will have to rely on synthetic petroleum fuel made from its large stores of coal.

A two-step chemical process augments a method of making cleaner-burning alternative fuel from coal and other carbon sources by transforming some of its waste products into diesel fuel, researchers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, report.

"Two percent of the United States' energy reserves is in oil, 3 percent is in gas, and 95 percent is in coal," said Dr. Maurice Brookhart, W.R. Kenan Jr. professor of chemistry in UNC's College of Arts and Sciences. "Many people in the energy sector think that when oil starts to run out, coal will be a source of transportation fuel for some time before we perfect the science behind solar and hydrogen-based energy. Producing diesel fuels from coal is especially attractive since diesel engines are more efficient than gasoline engines."

The Fischer-Tropsch method of making synthetic liquid fuels from coal and other carbon sources has been used since the 1920s. Today, Fischer-Tropsch fuels power most large vehicles in South Africa, and American companies have expressed interest in these fuels, which emit fewer particulates and less carbon monoxide than conventional diesel fuels. Such fuels have been termed "green diesel."

The cost of making Fischer-Tropsch fuels has been considered prohibitive. "But right now, with oil this expensive, I think it will soon become a competitive process to make liquid fuels," said Brookhart, an author of the study, which is published Friday (April 14) in the journal Science.

Dr. Alan S. Goldman, professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Rutgers, is the lead author of the study.

The Fischer-Tropsch reaction creates hydrocarbon compounds called alkanes. Methane and ethane are examples of alkanes. Some of the alkanes created by Fischer-Tropsch are desirable for use as fuel, but others have low molecular weights that make them unsuitable.

Current coal reserves. Source: US Department of Energy/Energy Information Administration Cleaner, more efficient use of coal could play a key role in addressing climate change, especially with the growing importance of coal as an energy source as world crude oil supplies are diminished in the future. Coal presently supplies about two-thirds of China's energy and one-third of the energy demand in the United States but, due to its abundance, is forecast to become an increasingly important relative to petroleum around mid-century.

"The process we have developed allows one to convert more of these Fischer-Tropsch materials to usable diesel fuels," said Brookhart.

"It's accomplished by a dual-catalyst system that allows us to take low molecular weight alkanes with between four and nine carbons in the chain and boost their weights up to a range appropriate for diesel fuel (10 to 19 carbons)," he added.

Brookhart said that in the dual-catalyst system, "one catalyst removes hydrogen, converting the alkane to a new material that contains carbon-carbon double bonds." Those double bonds make the new material more reactive, he added.

Then a second catalyst "scrambles" the carbon bonds, creating compounds with higher molecular weights. The first catalyst then returns the hydrogen atoms to the rearranged compounds, yielding alkanes that are usable as fuel.

Currently, a process termed hydrocracking is used to break down hydrocarbons with molecular weights too high for fuel use into lower molecular weight materials, but the process is not very selective.

"The catalyst system we used can combine very low molecular weight and very high molecular weight alkanes to produce alkanes in the diesel fuel range and, thus, may also prove useful for recovering value from high molecular weight materials," Brookhart said.

The investigations are in the early stages, and Brookhart added that "considerable improvements in the catalyst systems are required before they become practical. We are working hard on that."

The other authors of the study, in addition to Brookhart and Goldman, are Rutgers postdoctoral research associate Dr. Ritu Ahuja; postdoctoral research associate Dr. Amy H. Roy and research assistant Dr. Zheng Huang, both of UNC's department of chemistry; and Dr. William Schinski, a chemist with Chevron Research and Technology Company.

The research was sponsored by a grant from the National Science Foundation Center for the Activation and Transformation of Strong Bonds (CATSB), of which Brookhart and Goldman are members.

The center, based at the University of Washington, is one of the first "chemical bonding centers" funded by the NSF to encourage groups of scientists to work together to tackle major problems in chemistry to benefit society. Its work focuses on finding new ways to transform strong chemical bonds, in hopes of creating environmentally friendly ways to synthesize materials on a large scale.