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Let’s not kid ourselves: Google’s investment in transportation so far is paltry compared to what it’s spending on other industries. But while we’re not predicting that Google will make a G-car any time soon, its efforts to push plug-in vehicles as a way to build out a smarter power grid, and to bring some of the intelligence of information technology to transportation, will be worth watching.

"It is necessary for all major emitters to participate in efforts" to fight climate change, he said, speaking in front of lawmakers from the world's eight most industrialised nations as well as five major emerging economies.Climate change "is a borderless problem. It will remain unresolved if only some countries participate, even if they do their best," he added at a forum on climate change where former British PM Tony Blair was also present.

This report applies a full-cost economics approach to climate change adaptation, using the aluminium industry as a case study to illustrate the complexity of the policy challenge. The report examines the positive value of jobs within the upstream aluminium industry, and the negative value of carbon emissions from the sector. It estimates the value which flows from aluminium jobs to individual workers and to the wider community. The report provides a demographic survey of aluminium towns and finds that aluminium towns are less economically vibrant than the Australian economy as a whole, with lower median incomes (despite high aluminium wages), lower employment and lower workforce participation. This highlights the critical importance of aluminium to these towns, employing thousands of local workers at an average wage more than double the national median.