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Google is trying to have its finger in every pie, and it's this trying to be "all things to all people" that venture capitalist Jean-Louis Gassée derides as the "spray and pray" approach in a column headlined "Google's SOE (Strategy of Everything)."

"We'll shoot arrows in the dark and when the sun rises, we'll paint a target around the one that lands in a good spot," he says, mimicking how a strategist might explain the approach. "We'll declare victory and raise a second round … Read more

General Electric's latest green-technology initiative will be found in unlikely place: the inside of a refrigerator.

The industrial giant tomorrow will announce that it has changed its refrigerator manufacturing to use a gas that dramatically reduces the amount of greenhouse gases emitted. GE will host an event at a Decatur, Ala., plant where the atmosphere-friendly gas has first been introduced into GE's refrigerators.

The gas, called cyclopentane, is used as a blowing agent for the foam insulation poured into refrigeration products during manufacture. GE said it will spend about $16 million to convert its Decatur facility, part of … Read more

Republicans in the House of Representatives introduced a bill today that would permanently stop the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating emissions blamed for warming the planet.

President Barack Obama would veto a bill that permanently blocks the agency from tackling climate change, administration officials have said. Obama has pledged to the world the United States will cut greenhouse gases to about 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020.

Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, introduced the bill, called the Energy Tax Prevention Act.

Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), a climate skeptic who is writing … Read more

Ten eastern states in a greenhouse gas reduction program have invested more than half of their carbon permit auction proceeds, or about $404 million, in energy efficiency, the group said today.

New York, Massachusetts, Maryland, and seven other states on the East Coast belong to the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, or RGGI, which aims to trim carbon dioxide output from the area's power plants 10 percent by the end of 2018.

To meet that goal, RGGI holds quarterly auctions of permits that let the plants emit carbon dioxide. Some investors also buy the credits in the cap-and-trade program, believing … Read more

The Obama administration scaled back on demands for heavy industrial boilers to cut toxic air emissions, a sign it may be willing to compromise with businesses and Republicans on future air pollution rules.

The Environmental Protection Agency today issued final regulations on cutting air pollutants such as mercury and soot at boilers, which are basically on-site power plants at factories, and incinerators.

The EPA said the move would cost companies $1.8 billion to cut pollution, about half the amount that would have resulted from rules proposed last year.

While the rules are only a minor part of the EPA'… Read more

SINGAPORE--The outcome of U.N. climate talks in Mexico held this month should boost steps in Asia to curb greenhouse gas emissions, with China a likely bright spot in 2011, a senior analyst at a leading U.S. think tank said.

The talks helped put the troubled U.N. negotiations back on track but failed to agree on a broader pact meant to avert every more extreme droughts, floods, heat waves, and rising sea levels.

Across the region, China, India, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and Taiwan are working on myriad policy steps to put a price on carbon emissions, drive … Read more

A Chinese government fund has told a U.N. panel it supports project developers that earn carbon offsets under a lucrative Kyoto Protocol program, and rejects the idea that they are overcompensated.

Chinese project developers rejected key grounds for a review of Kyoto's clean development mechanism (CDM), and the China CDM Fund supported them, confidential papers showed a week before a U.N. panel decides whether to launch a formal review of the program.

The projects are the most lucrative under the CDM, which allows rich countries to buy offsets from carbon-cutting projects in the developing world as a … Read more

The United States finalized on Thursday its first greenhouse gas emissions rules on automobiles and also boosted fuel efficiency standards--moves that Canada is jointly imposing on its industry.

The rules are part of President Obama's goal by 2020 to cut emissions by about 17 percent under 2005 levels of the gases blamed for warming the planet.

Obama wants Congress to pass a long-delayed climate bill, but to push it along, he has also set in motion steps for the Environmental Protection Agency to begin regulating the emissions from cars and large polluters like power plants.

"By working together … Read more

U.S. lawmakers face an uphill battle enacting a climate bill in 2010 that includes a cap-and-trade market in greenhouse gases, after this month's U.N. meeting in Copenhagen failed to hammer out a global pact on emissions cuts.

U.S. climate legislation remains likely as lawmakers feel pressure to help the country lead in production of low-carbon energy sources such as wind, solar, and nuclear power.

But the Copenhagen Accord did not include emissions targets. This will make it difficult for lawmakers to argue that the United States should have a cap while China, the world's top … Read more