A Switzerland-based company is testing an extended-range plug-in mini-vehicle that it says gets more than 200 miles per gallon and has a single-tank range of more than 300 miles.

The company, Catecar, tested a prototype of the vehicle at the Geneva Airport this week. The car weighs less than 800 pounds, while its batteries account for about 10 percent of the vehicle's weight, according to the website. Making the car even more energy efficient are the solar panels on the vehicle's roof.

Connie Hedegaard, the European Commission’s climate chief, expressed confidence that a noteworthy agreement would emerge from the Rio+20 conference.

“I’m absolutely sure,” she told attendees of KPMG’s Global Sustainable Business Growth Summit in New York. “It’s doable. I think there are viable, specific things that can be done so it’s not just a talk show.”

The marine and tidal energy sector in Scotland is being offered £6 million to push out new wave and tidal power devices, on top of a £50 million R&D fund for all offshore energy.

The £6 million is from Scottish Enterprise, which is launching a second round of funding from its WATERS £13 million fund to help reduce the cost of bringing wave and tidal technologies to commercial application.

From 6 to 8 February 2012, the FEDRE took part in Vienna in important discussions, initiated by the World Bank Institute, on energy efficiency and energy savings in the Balkans.

The reason for the invitation was FEDRE membership in the « Energy Efficiency » Task Force of the NALAS network which gathers the local authorities of the whole South-East Europe.

Google has today taken top spot in Greenpeace's annual Cool IT Leaderboard ranking technology firms' environmental efforts, seizing the crown from networking giant Cisco.

European leaders have mapped out a bold agenda ahead of the Rio summit, vowing to transform development aid, help provide renewable electricity to the world’s neediest people, and bulk up the United Nations environment body.

The European Union’s ‘Agenda for Change’ proposal calls for pumping foreign aid into sustainable growth and energy access, while European Union officials have also floated the idea of transforming the U.N. Environmental Programme into an agency with expanded influence and greater power to promote research and development.

The Norwegian government set a target of generating more than 60 percent of its electricity through renewable resources by 2020, an official said.

Many new trends are shaping the world – resource scarcity, globalisation, technology, demographics and urbanisation. These emerging trends are very visible in India.

How do indigenous communities hunt without pushing target species to local extinction? In other words, how have communities retained sustainable practices over countless generations? One answer is given in a new study by the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) and the Center for International Research in Agronomy and Development (CIRAD): supernatural beliefs. Looking at a community of indigenous people on the Indonesian island of Seram, researchers found that supernatural beliefs ensured animals never vanished for good.

PARIS — The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) is emerging as a hot issue in preparations for June's Rio conference, styled as a once-in-a-generation chance to restore a sick planet to good health.

The US is fighting a proposal, backed according to France by least 100 countries, for transforming UNEP from a poorly noticed, second-string unit into a planetary super-agency.