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Tuesday, March 9, 2010.

From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I'm Shannon de Ryhove.

Making headlines today:

Energy and chemicals group Sasol CEO Pat Davies says that it will make an investment decision on what could be a 10-billion-dollar coal-to-liquids project in China during the 2010 calendar year.

The project will be the JSE-listed group's first CTL investment outside South Africa, where the technology is used to produce about 40% of the country's fuel. The project has been reconfigured from an 80 000-barrel a day plant to a 90 000-barrel a day facility.

Should it proceed, it will also be the South African group's first CTL plant to be built amid growing pressure on companies and countries to reduce climate-altering carbon dioxide emissions and the first to be designed together with the option for carbon capture and storage.

The feasibility study is scheduled to be completed by the middle of 2010.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) MD Dominique Strauss-Kahn says that the IMF is working on the idea of a green fund to raise 100-billion-dollars a year by 2020 to mitigate the impacts of climate change on developing economies.

He says that climate change will hit low-income countries soonest and hardest. He notes that Africa has contributed little to the carbon emissions that endanger the planet, but it's already paying the price. He says that, without action, Africa will suffer more from drought, flooding, food shortages, and disease-possibly provoking further instability and conflict, which requires urgent action.

The IMF wasn't planning to manage the proposed green fund, but intended for this to make a significant contribution in the global debate and for consideration by the international community.

Also making headlines:

South Africa's Pebble Bed Modular Reactor CEO, Jaco Kriek, announces his resignation.
The South African government puts forward the name of Tourism Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk to the UN to potentially lead the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
North African countries plan to adopt nuclear energy with help from the French.
And, IT services provider Dimension Data has announced that it's invested more than 1-billion-rand in South African technology infrastructure over the past three years.

That's a round up of news making headlines today.