The International Monetary Fund is working on proposals for a multibillion dollar "green fund" to help countries tap funds to deal with the effects of climate change, the head of the institution said on Saturday. IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn told the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that developing countries would need financial help to tackle climate change while rich nations have taken on higher debt in reaction to the global financial crisis. Global talks on a new climate change pact have mostly looked to industrial powers to help finance efforts by developing countries to deal with climate change.... Continue reading

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said on Monday it has set a new air quality standard for a pollutant linked to lung problems emitted by automobiles and industrial plants. The agency set the new one-hour standard for nitrogen dioxide, which contributes to smog and fine particulate pollution, at a level of 100 parts per billion (ppb). It is also keeping the exiting annual average standard of 53 ppb. "For the first time ever, we are working to prevent short-term exposures in high risk NO2 zones like urban communities and areas near roadways," EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said in a release.... Continue reading

OSLO (Reuters) - Rich nations are pledging almost $30 billion in aid from 2010-12 to help the poor combat climate change in an early test of last month's "Copenhagen Accord" that is vague about conditions and who gets cash. Donors will probably have to decide for themselves how to spend money in 2010 since there is no mechanism to guide handouts. A "Copenhagen Green Climate Fund," also planned by last month's low-ambition summit, does not yet exist. "The expectation is that donor countries will deliver through existing bilateral and multilateral channels of their own choosing," Elliot Diringer of the Pew... Continue reading