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No less than one third of a car's fuel consumption is spent in overcoming friction, and this friction loss has a direct impact on both fuel consumption and emissions. However, new technology can reduce friction by anything from 10% to 80% in various components of a car, according to a joint study by VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) in USA. It should thus be possible to reduce car's fuel consumption and emissions by 18% within the next 5 to 10 years and up to 61% within 15 to 25 years.

Lowering energy consumption associated with computer data storage (specifically, cloud computing) and saving millions of dollars are possible now, thanks to new memory technology, a field that researchers at the University of Pittsburgh have been exploring through a four-year, $1.9 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded in 2009 titled, "Large: Storage Class Memory Architecture for Energy Efficient Data Centers."

"Cornell computer scientists have proposed an innovative wireless design that could greatly reduce the cost and power consumption of massive cloud computing data centers, while improving performance."

A University of Washington project sees a role for programmers to reduce the energy appetite of the ones and zeroes in the code itself. Researchers have created a system, called EnergJ, that reduces energy consumption in simulations by up to 50 percent, and has the potential to cut energy by as much as 90 percent. They will present the research next week in San Jose at the Programming Language Design and Implementation annual meeting.

The Deakin University invention uses waste heat to reduce friction by warming the engine oil. A prototype has been built and tested and the inventors are now talking to the car manufacturers and developing an aftermarket conversion kit. The system, which can be retrofitted, works by diverting waste heat to bring engine oil up to its optimal operating temperature. It was developed by researchers at Deakin University led by Mr Frank Will of the School of Engineering during his PhD project.

The enormous kite, which looks like a paraglider, works in tandem with the ship's engines, cutting back on fuel consumption, costs, and carbon footprint. "Using kites you can harness more energy than with any other type of wind-powered equipment," said German inventor Stephan Wrage, whose company SkySails is looking for lift-off on the back of worldwide efforts to boost renewable energy.

Along with China's rise as a world economic power have come a rapid climb in energy use and a related boost in man-made carbon dioxide emissions. In fact, China overtook the United States in 2007 as the world's leading emitter of greenhouse gases. Yet according to this new forecast, the steeply rising curve of energy demand in China will begin to moderate between 2030 and 2035 and flatten thereafter. There will come a time-within the next two decades-when the number of people in China acquiring cars, larger homes, and other accouterments of industrialized societies will peak. It's a phenomenon known as saturation. "Once nearly every household owns a refrigerator, a washing machine, air conditioners and other appliances, and once housing area per capita has stabilized, per household electricity growth will slow,'' Levine explains.

Janet K. Swim, professor of psychology, Penn State, and her colleagues report that growing consumption and growing population are two significant contributors to human impact on the environment. Both substantially increase carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, the researchers report in a special issue of American Psychologist that focuses on how psychology contributes to understanding and addressing global climate change. "Engaging in one type of environmentally friendly behavior can predispose one to engage in similar behaviors, inhibit other behaviors, or even increase environmentally harmful behaviors," said Swim.

UN climate chief Christiana Figueres, shown here in 2010, told governments to prepare for a gap on the expiry of pledges under the Kyoto Protocol, which has formed the foundation of the world's efforts to cut carbon emissions. Commitments by most developed countries to cut emissions are likely to expire at the end of next year without a new round of legally binding pledges, she warned.

In a paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a group of researchers and scientists show that the gains that have been made in stabilizing CO2 emissions in developed or "rich" countries since the signing of the Kyoto agreement, have been neutralized by the increase in CO2 emissions from developing nations as they produce goods for trade, primarily to developed countries. Because of this disparity, many groups are calling for a change to the Kyoto agreement practice of only counting CO2 emissions that are produced in-country, rather than the CO2 footprint of those products that are consumed.