Finance

The bill could go higher, a spokesman for a trade group of energy producers warned.

Fraud will cost firms $994bn this year

China is raising its sales tax on big cars to as high as 40 percent, and drastically cutting taxes on small cars, in its latest attempt to combat emissions that contribute to heavy blankets of smog over most of its cities.

The tax on passenger vehicles with engines bigger than 4 liters will be doubled to 40 percent from 20 percent, effective Sept. 1, the Finance Ministry said in a statement on its Web site. Those buying vehicles with engines sized from 2 liters up to 4 liters will have to pay a 25 percent tax, up from the current 15 percent, it said.

The World Bank Group's mission is to reduce poverty. The Bank also works toward environmental sustainability. What's the link between them, and does its practice on the ground promote both priorities? That's the question posed by the World Bank's Independent Evaluation Group or IEG in a recent audit of the Bank's funding projects. The results?

The US Environmental Protection Agency's rejection of a formal request for a scaling back of national renewable fuel standards has bought mixed reactions from politicians and environmentalists.

Last week, the EPA finally rejected a request from the state of Texas, made in April, for a 50 per cent waiver of the renewable fuel standard (RFS), citing concerns over the effect of the targets on food prices

Two-thirds of U.S. Corporations paid no federal income taxes between 1998-2005, according to this reort from congress.

Tokyo Stock Exchange Group, Inc. (TSE Group) is fully aware that global environmental issues are of paramount importance to the global community and should be addressed by both the public and private sectors.

With the adoption of the Kyoto Protocol, economic instruments have been introduced to reduce greenhouse gases. Trading in carbon emissions rights has been ongoing in Japan and other countries, and is expected to expand further in the future.

Don't shed any tears for the purported beneficiaries of the WTO talks. If truth-in-advertising rules applied, this might have been called the Doha Anti-Development Round.

The global greenhouse gas market needs better governance to give investors and banks confidence to finance trades potentially valued at $1 trillion by 2020, said Merrill Lynch & Co.'s Abyd Karmali.