APEC OK for climate talks: Howard: Prime Minister John Howard says Sydney’s APEC summit is an appropriate place for Asian countries to hold talks on climate change, and the eventual cross-border trade in carbon credits. “It doesn’t necessarily have to be within the UN framework,” Mr Howard said in an interview in The Australian Financial Review. SMH

How prehistoric penguins marched on Peru: A prehistoric penguin has been uncovered that – at more than 5ft tall and with a spear-like 7in beak – is the mother of all penguins. The giant birds lived around the equator tens of millions of years earlier than expected and during a period when the earth was much warmer than it is now. Researchers discovered their fossilised remains in Peru. Telegraph

ExxonMobil highlights commitment to addressing climate risks: US oil company ExxonMobil has pledged to increase energy efficiency in the short term, advance current emission-reducing technologies in the medium term, and develop breakthrough technologies in the long term, as part of its bid to tackle climate change. Rex Tillerson, chairman and chief executive of ExxonMobil, has highlighted two critical energy challenges that the world currently faces, namely meeting the economic needs of growing populations, especially in developing countries, and addressing the risks of climate change. Energy Business Review

Scarce water and population boom leads California to ‘perfect drought’: A typical summer’s day in Los Angeles: temperatures nudge the nineties, the sun blazes high in the sky, palm trees sway in the ocean breeze, and sprinklers spray a fine mist of water into the scorching air. But if the predictions of climatologists, environmentalists, city planners and the head of the water board are correct, the sprinklers and many other of the comforts that have made southern California habitable may have to be turned off. Guardian

China aims for bigger share of South Asia’s water lifeline: Sharpening Asian competition over energy resources, driven in part by high growth rates in gross domestic product and in part by mercantilist attempts to lock up supplies, has obscured another danger: Water shortages in much of Asia are beginning to threaten rapid economic modernization, prompting the building of upstream projects on international rivers. If water geopolitics were to spur interstate tensions through reduced water flows to neighboring states, the Asian renaissance could stall. Japan Times