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WMO: CO2 levels at record highs

GENEVA, Switzerland, Nov. 6 (UPI) — The World Meteorological Organization said Wednesday the amount of greenhouse gases trapped in the atmosphere reached a record high in 2012. “The observations from WMO’s extensive Global Atmosphere Watch network highlight yet again how heat-trapping gases from human activities have upset the natural balance of our atmosphere and are a major contribution to climate change,” WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud said in a statement. “As a result of this, our climate is changing, our weather is more extreme, ice sheets and glaciers are melting and sea levels are rising.” WMO said there was a 32 percent increase in the warming effect of greenhouse gases between 1990 and 2012. Carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels like oil and coal accounted for 80 percent of the increase. CO2 levels in the atmosphere increased at a higher rate from 2011 to 2012 than the […]

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Water Shortages Threaten Energy Output: Wood Mackenzie

Water shortages are threatening energy output and increasing costs in some of the world’s most prolific sectors including shale gas in the U.S., crude oil in the Middle East and coal in China, and the situation is set to worsen, Wood Mackenzie said Thursday. The energy sector is already the world’s largest consumer of water for industrial purposes, using over 15% of global supply, and this is rising, the consulting firm said in a report, noting huge quantities are needed to increase pressure at oil fields, in technologies like hydraulic fracturing and to upgrade coal quality. Growing water needs will pit energy companies against other users, and increase production costs significantly, it said. Water is already a major cost factor for companies involved in shale developments in the U.S., including Antero Resources Inc., AR -0.27% Antero Resources Corp. U.S.: NYSE $ 55.04 -0.15 -0.27% Nov. 6, 2013 4:00 pm […]

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BP extends olive branch to Kirkuk over field development

BP extends olive branch to Kirkuk over field development BP CEO Bob Dudley met with the Kirkuk governor on Wednesday in an attempt to remove local opposition to developing the field that has been a key flashpoint of Iraq’s territorial disputes.Dudley and Oil Minister Abdul Karim Luaibi met with Governor Najmaldin Karim and other Kirkuk provincial government officials in Kirkuk, and went to the state-run North Oil Company’s (NOC) headquarters for a briefing on Kirkuk field development plans. The delegation then traveled to Baghdad to meet with Prim… This content is for registered users. Please login to continue. If you are not a registered user, you may purchase a subscription or sign up for a free trial .

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Iran nuclear issue not insoluble, says FM Javad Zarif

Iranian technicians outside the building housing the reactor of Bushehr nuclear power plant. File photo 7 November 2013 Last updated at 09:26 The West suspects Iran’s programme is arms production – a charge Iran denies Iran’s foreign minister has expressed cautious optimism about upcoming talks on Iran’s nuclear programme, saying the issue is “not insoluble”. World powers and Iran are due to meet in Geneva later on Thursday for a further round of discussions. Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said the talks would be “highly laboured” but the aim was to “cross over the wall of distrust” created by Western policies. The West suspects Iran of seeking to build nuclear weapons. Tehran says its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes. ‘First step’ Analysis The air in Geneva is clear. So is the lake. But, for the next two days, everything else negotiators face in this city may be cloudy, muddy, […]

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U.S. Will Ease Sanctions if Iran Halts Nuclear Program, Official Says

GENEVA — On the eve of a new round of talks between world powers and Iran, a senior Obama administration official said Wednesday that the United States was prepared to offer Iran limited relief from economic sanctions if Tehran agreed to halt its nuclear program temporarily and reversed part of it. The official said that the suspension of Iran’s nuclear efforts, perhaps for six months, would give negotiators time to pursue a comprehensive and far more challenging agreement. “Put simply, what we’re looking for now is a first phase, a first step, an initial understanding that stops Iran’s nuclear program from moving forward for the first time in decades and that potentially rolls part of it back,” the official told reporters. The long-stymied talks with Iran were re-energized after Hassan Rouhani, the new Iranian president, took office in August and declared that he wanted to resolve longstanding concerns about […]

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US seeks ‘first step’ nuclear deal with Iran

Bushehr nuclear power plant, Iran ©AP The reactor building of the Bushehr nuclear power plant, outside the southern city of Bushehr, Iran The US is looking to negotiate a “first step” deal with Iran which would halt parts of its nuclear programme in return for modest suspension of sanctions, a senior US official said on Wednesday ahead of a crucial new round of talks . The initial agreement could last for six months and would “put time on the clock” in order to allow for a more detailed negotiation about Iran’s nuclear programme. The administration official also warned that any effort by the US Congress to impose new sanctions on Iran could scupper the negotiations. “For the first time, Iran appears to be committed to moving this negotiating process forward quickly,” the US official said. “We do not see them using the negotiating process to buy time.” US officials […]

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First-step Deal on Curbing Iran's Nuclear Program Takes Shape

GENEVA—U.S. and Iranian officials said a confidence-building deal on curbing Tehran’s nuclear activities is within reach ahead of a new round of negotiations in Geneva starting Thursday. A senior U.S. official said weeks of detailed discussions between Iran, the U.S. and other world powers have shaped a “first-step” deal that could be forged this week. It would have Iran pause its nuclear program—probably for six months—in return for a suspension of some Western sanctions. The deal would put “additional time on the clock” for the two sides to pursue a comprehensive solution to the decadelong conflict over suspicions that Iran is trying to develop a nuclear bomb, the official said on Wednesday. “For the first time, we aren’t seeing them use this negotiating process simply to buy time,” the official said of Iran. “We are coming to understand each other in terms of what the equation would look like […]

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First-step Deal on Curbing Iran’s Nuclear Program Takes Shape

GENEVA—U.S. and Iranian officials said a confidence-building deal on curbing Tehran’s nuclear activities is within reach ahead of a new round of negotiations in Geneva starting Thursday. A senior U.S. official said weeks of detailed discussions between Iran, the U.S. and other world powers have shaped a “first-step” deal that could be forged this week. It would have Iran pause its nuclear program—probably for six months—in return for a suspension of some Western sanctions. The deal would put “additional time on the clock” for the two sides to pursue a comprehensive solution to the decadelong conflict over suspicions that Iran is trying to develop a nuclear bomb, the official said on Wednesday. “For the first time, we aren’t seeing them use this negotiating process simply to buy time,” the official said of Iran. “We are coming to understand each other in terms of what the equation would look like […]

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U.S.-Iran Thaw Grew From Years Of Behind-the-Scenes Talks

WASHINGTON—The White House heralded President Barack Obama ‘s phone call with Iranian counterpart Hasan Rouhani earlier this fall as a foreign-policy milestone born of a rush of last-minute diplomacy. But the historic conversation was more intricately choreographed than previously disclosed. Top National Security Council officials began planting the seeds for such an exchange months earlier—holding a series of secret meetings and telephone calls and convening an assortment of Arab monarchs, Iranian exiles and former U.S. diplomats to clandestinely ferry messages between Washington and Tehran, according to current and former U.S., Middle Eastern and European officials briefed on the effort. Mr. Obama had empowered the administration’s top Iran specialist, Puneet Talwar, for some time to have direct meetings and phone conversations with Iranian Foreign Ministry officials, those people say. Some of the contacts took place in Oman’s ancient capital, Muscat, U.S. and Middle Eastern officials say, which sits less than […]

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Iran Loses Nuclear Leverage as World Ignores Export Drop

Iran ’s new government, pressing for relief from oil sanctions that have squeezed as much as $5 billion from its monthly export revenue, enters nuclear talks today with limited economic leverage. Since the U.S. and European Union imposed sanctions on purchasers of Iranian oil in July 2012, higher production in the U.S. and Iraq and flat demand in Europe have more than offset the loss in world markets of more than 1 million barrels a day in Iranian exports. As U.S. consumers pay $3.23 a gallon for gasoline, almost a dime less than at the start of July 2012, Iran’s economy will contract 1.5 percent this year after shrinking 1.9 percent in 2012, according to International Monetary Fund estimates. “Right now, Iran needs to sell its oil far more than the rest of the world needs to buy it,” Trevor Houser , a partner at the Rhodium Group LLC, […]

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