<p>European Union politicians supported a proposal last week to withhold carbon permits from the emissions trading scheme to increase prices. EU parliament's industry committee passed a proposal that would let the Commission take measures that "may include withholding of the necessary amount of allowances" from the 2013-2020 market. Analysts have said that the Commission overestimated the number of required permits for the 2008-2012 period, resulting in a price-depressing surplus of 500 million to 1.4 billion permits.

<p>Chinese authorities have announced plans to force major cities to monitor fine particulate matter emissions, acknowledging that the move is partially in response to online activism. "A stirring campaign on the country's social network websites since last autumn seemed to have gained a satisfying response from the country's policymaker," said the Xinhua news agency. The plan involves stricter pollution monitoring in 27 provincial capitals, the Beijing, Chongqing, Shanghai, and Tianjin megacities, and three major industrial belts.

<p>The Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre proposed a plan last week that would result in 430,000 hectares of forest reserves being managed by Aborigines instead of the Parks and Wildlife Service. Any agreement would have to pass through Tasmanian parliament, and Premier Lara Geddings has stated that she is concerned that a deal would derail the agreement to end nearly all logging in public native forests.