EU climate chief Connie Hedegaard acknowledged Friday that "difficult and unpleasant" negotiations lay ahead with countries like India and China to agree a global framework to cut greenhouse-gas emissions.

European Union policies to promote the use of biofuels for transportation will cost consumers as much as 126 billion euros ($166 billion) between now and 2020, two environmental groups said.

The fuels, gasoline substitutes derived from plants, probably won’t cut greenhouse gases because forests are chopped down to make way for biofuel plantations, Friends of the Earth and ActionAid said today in an e-mailed statement. The European Commission said that while biofuels cost more than fossil fuels, it’s “reasonable” for motorists to pay extra.

Europe’s 27 environment ministers will call for a 40% greenhouse gas emissions reduction by 2030 if they follow draft conclusions prepared by the Danish EU presidency ahead of a meeting on 9 March.

The Danish EU presidency wants the European Commission “to present timely options for delivering the reductions in the Low-Carbon Economy Roadmap to 2050 for the period to 2030,” while taking into account the “underlying assumptions” of EU nations.

The European Union may pass a triple whammy environment policy in the first half of this year that would bring a rapid jobs boost, cut energy bills and improve the environment by one simple measure: keeping Europe's buildings in good repair.

Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard said the EU Energy Efficiency Directive includes a commitment to retrofit a certain number of public buildings each year, improving insulation and stopping leaks.

Beijing said it has deep concerns over the EU's Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), which came into force on New year's Day and demands all airlines pay a green duty to offset carbon emissions.

"China opposes the European Union's unilateral legislation. China has expressed to the EU our deep concern and opposition many times on a bilateral level," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said.

IBM today announced the European Commission (EC), the executive body of the European Union, has awarded 27 IBM Data Centers for energy efficiency, based on the European Union (EU) Code of Conduct for Data Centers. The honor represents the largest portfolio of data centers from a single company to receive the recognition.

Europe can use its current financial crisis to help drive a prosperous green economy, according to Denmark’s Minister for Climate, Energy and Building Martin Lidegaard.

European Union carbon prices jumped after the EU Parliament environment committee backed a draft rule requiring the bloc’s executive to propose withholding some permits in the next phase of its carbon market.

Carbon allowances rose as much as 32 percent after deputies in the committee voted today in favor of a compromise amendment to an energy efficiency law that calls on the European Commission to change by the end of 2012 its regulation in order to “withhold a significant amount of allowances.”

European climate chief Connie Hedegaard, who salvaged Durban talks on global warming, has a next-to-impossible task ahead of striving to shame the world's biggest polluters into real action and tackling the EU's own environmental shortcomings.

At the Durban climate conference that ended on Sunday, the European Union's strategy worked. The first commitment period under the Kyoto protocol expires in 2012. The EU had made clear we would engage in a second Kyoto period only if Durban agreed on a clear roadmap to a deal which, for the first time, would bind all nations legally. And Durban delivered this roadmap.