Palm | Kelapa Sawit

Hoping to create a global carbon market, the organizers of the World Business Summit on Climate Change said that 2 million new jobs would be created in the US alone if it increased its reliance on cleaner sources of energy, Green Momentum reports.

The Copenhagen Climate Council study said the United States would gain that many jobs if its electricity use grew by just half of 1% a year and a quarter of its electricity came from wind energy and other renewable sources.

The EU Commission President told the CEOs of major international corporations that similar investments could produce a million new jobs in European Union countries. The International Energy Agency's (IEA) chief economist said that oil prices may return to "significantly higher" levels because companies have cut investment in the new production needed to match demand from fast-growing China and India. The IEA chief economist said that oil companies have cancelled at least $170 billion of planned investments - including $100 billion this year - as they seek to save money amid the financial and economic crisis. That's equivalent to 2 million barrels of oil per day, and a further 4.2 million barrels per day of future oil-supply has been delayed by at least 18 months, he said. Oil companies are likely to announce even more cutbacks in oil and gas production investments in coming months, he said. (26 May 2009)