South African Energy Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson said her department wants to address weaknesses in the process of commissioning renewable-power projects.

A government-appointed panel gave Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott two options to cut emissions more cheaply: either scrap or weaken its main clean energy program.

In the midst of a suburban sprawl halfway between the Eiffel Tower and Paris’s busy Orly airport, a drilling crew works night and day burrowing deep into the Earth’s crust in search of underground heat.

California and Quebec, which together created the largest carbon market in North America this year, may come away empty-handed as they woo northeastern U.S. states to join their system.

Japan has added 11,090 megawatts of clean energy capacity since July 2012, when it began an incentive program to encourage investment in renewables, according to the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.

Kenya Electricity Generating Co., the East African nation’s biggest power producer, plans joint ventures to complete its geothermal projects in Olkaria, Chief Executive Officer Albert Mugo said.

European Union governments are considering the use of carbon-permit funds to help finance clean technologies and spur poorer nations toward a low-carbon economy under a planned deal on 2030 climate and energy policies.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s government will negotiate with the opposition to cut Australia’s renewable energy target and exempt industries such as aluminum and copper smelting.

U.S. electricity markets face years of higher prices as clean-air regulations shut more coal-fired power plants than earlier forecast, cutting supply and forcing producers to rely more on natural gas.

The Brazilian government is seeking to award contracts in an auction tomorrow for natural gas- and coal-fueled power plants, reversing a drive that previously favored renewable-energy projects. It would lead to the first new thermal plants in three years, after the government scaled back such projects and awarded wind contracts starting in 2009 and solar energy earlier this year.

California Governor Jerry Brown proposed spending $59 billion to fix crumbling roads and raising the state’s renewable energy mandate to 50 percent.

China could be nearing publication of a plan to guide the development of geothermal energy resources over the next few years as it plunges ahead with efforts to get more of its energy from renewable sources.

The Obama administration is proposing a $4 billion fund to reward states that exceed cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions, and wants Congress to back steeper royalty rates for oil, gas and coal extraction from public land.

California’s bet on green energy is paying off, with clean technology companies creating more jobs and investing more money than competitors in any other state.

Enel SpA is putting the final touches on a yieldco that would hold its U.S. renewable energy assets, making it the latest power-plant owner to opt for a structure that frees up capital.

India said cheaper credit along with foreign investment will help the world’s third-largest polluter fund an ambitious renewable energy program that would build green power plants faster than China.

New power-generating units at Kenya’s Olkaria I plant are saving East Africa’s biggest economy about 2.2 billion shillings ($24 million) a month on fuel costs, according to the country’s biggest electricity producer.

Actress Natalie Portman, environmentalist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and other high-profile Harvard University alumni are calling for demonstrations to urge divestment from fossil fuels.

Beijing, where pollution averaged more than twice China’s national standard last year, will close the last of its four major coal-fired power plants next year.

U.K. electricity from low-carbon sources accounted for almost a quarter of the country’s generation in the fourth quarter as Drax Group Plc converted a second coal-power plant to burn wood.

Jim Keffer is Republican state lawmaker in Texas with a permit to carry a concealed weapon and doubts about whether human activity is causing global warming.

Yale University police cited 19 students after they staged a sit-in outside President Peter Salovey’s office to push for divestment from fossil-fuel companies.

Political deadlock over Australia’s clean energy future is prompting companies such as Vestas Wind Systems A/S and Acciona SA to increasingly turn to rival markets for growth.

Australia’s largest electricity producer committed to close its coal-fired power plants within 35 years as part of an effort to cut the nation’s dependence on the fossil fuel.

Squashed between a highway overpass and a towering suburban shopping center east of Paris, a drilling rig is completing the second of two geothermal wells aimed at capturing the earth’s natural heat for homes and offices.

The European Commission raised concern that the U.K. and France may not meet their 2020 renewable energy targets, saying the two countries should examine whether they’re doing enough to reach the goals.

In West Virginia, where workers have harvested coal seams for centuries, Pope Francis’ new warning about the risks of fossil fuels will find skepticism even among the faithful.

Stanford, Oxford and Georgetown universities have won praise for promising to purge their endowments of direct investments in coal, embracing the fight against climate change.

Long-frustrated wind and solar developers in Australia can now get to work on more than A$14 billion ($11 billion) in projects after a new renewable energy target passed parliament.

The secretary general of the United Nations is frustrated with the pace of negotiations for what’s intended to be a crucial agreement limiting global warming.

Climate change pledges submitted so far from the world’s leading economies won’t be enough to keep the planet from warming dangerously, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said Monday in New York.

Proposals to reduce heat-trapping emissions need to be “a floor, not a ceiling,” he said.

The global increase in temperatures will exceed 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) under the national pledges already submitted to UN, Ban said. That’s the goal scientists and the UN have set to avoid the worst effects due to global warming.

The proposals submitted to date “will not be enough to place us on a 2-degree pathway,” Ban said.

Without any changes to global emissions, the world is on track to warm by 4 degrees Celsius or more, UN Assistant Secretary-General for Climate Change Janos Pasztor said earlier this month.

World leaders have five months to go before a meeting of almost 200 nations in Paris that’s intended to seal a new global pact to cut planet-warming carbon emissions. If successful, the agreement would be the first ever to require both developed nations like the US and growing economies like China to address climate change.

“The pace of UN negotiations are far too slow,” Ban said. “It’s like a snail’s pace.”

The U.S., the world’s biggest historic source of greenhouse gases, pledged earlier this year to cut its emissions by as much as 28 percent by 2025. The European Union has promised a 40 percent cut by 2030. Several other major economies, including Australia and Japan, have yet to submit climate plans to the UN.

German Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel said 13 percent of power stations burning lignite, a cheap form of coal, would be phased out by 2021 under a program to cut power industry pollution. The government abandoned talks on proposals to impose a climate-change fee that the industry said would have forced mines and plants to close, threatening jobs.

Coal is having a hard time lately. U.S. power plants are switching to natural gas, environmental restrictions are kicking in, and the industry is being derided as the world's No. 1 climate criminal. Prices have crashed, sure, but for a real sense of coal's diminishing prospects, check out what's happening in the bond market.

Publicly, the United Nations climate-change talks look mired in disputes over everything from money to the length of the proposed agreement.

Papua New Guinea recently became the first country to formally submit the final version of its national climate action plan (called a “Nationally Determined Contribution,” or NDC) under the Paris Agreement. The small Pacific nation’s plan to transition to 100 percent renewable energy by 2030 is no longer just an “intended” nationally determined contribution (INDC) — it is now the country’s official climate plan.

Free and fair elections in Afghanistan are crucial for the country's successful future, U.N. deputy envoy Nicholas Haysom said Tuesday.

Iran wants to work toward a draft agreement on a comprehensive solution to a lingering nuclear row with Western powers, the foreign minister said Tuesday.

Lending a financial hand to Ukraine is a safeguard that will ensure stability on the European continent, a European monetary official said Wednesday.

Iran's deputy foreign minister said nuclear negotiations in Vienna were useful and another round of talks was scheduled over the course of three days in April.

Elections can only be representative if all members of society, including women, play a role, the head of the U.N. mission in Afghanistan said Wednesday.

Nearly half of the declared chemical weapons in Syria have been removed from the country, a U.N. monitoring mission said Thursday.

A U.N. special envoy on Palestinian issues said Friday it was time for the International Court of Justice to assess what he said was Israeli colonialism.

European leaders said Friday they were frustrated by Turkey's decision to restrict access to the social media website Twitter.

The provincial government in Pakistan's Sindh province is planning a literacy program to reach women and girls in remote areas via cell phones.

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