The World Bank has signed its first greenhouse gas reductions agreement in China from a landfill gas project, with the sale of 635,000 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO₂e) greenhouse gas emissions reductions to the Spanish Carbon Fund.

China plans to significantly increase charges on the release of pollutants and effluents, and may consider combining the charges with utility bills, according to Bi Jingquan, vice-minister of the National Development and Reform Commission. Under such a scheme, companies that do not pay the fees would not be allowed to use electricity and water supplies.

Our friends in Canada, over at The Clean Slate Report are talking about smart grids... this is exciting stuff, and just shows what can be achieved in deregulated energy markets.

A good example cited by Clean Slate is Comverge - take a look, apply such ideas to China and see how many $$$ signs* you can count before hitting the floor.

Hong Kong's elite paraded themselves in skimpy business attire at the "Cool Biz Fashion Show" today to further encourage more companies to adopt a "dress down" policy in summer, saving energy and helping the environment.

While biomass is often touted as the saviour of China's pollution problems, the commercial realities are far from utopian.

Faced with stiff competition from established coal technology, biomass technology will struggle to gain any serious foothold in the Chinese energy market until a fleet of commercially proven and economically viable plant is installed.

But as this special Blue Skies China special report shows, throw the United Nation's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) into the equation, and biomass suddenly becomes a far more attractive proposition.