September passenger car sales shrank 1.44 percent from September last year to 552,800 after the August sales contracted 6.24 percent from a year earlier.

Speaking a day after the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries announced an emergency meeting to discuss oil prices, which have dipped below $80 a barrel, he urged its leaders to be ‘statesmanlike.’

The decision followed a diplomatic row that was sparked three months ago when a son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was arrested in Geneva on July 15 and charged with mistreating two domestic employees.

The agreement will open the door for U.S. companies to provide billions of dollars of equipment and expertise to the Indian nuclear power industry.

WWF regrets, however, that the European Union has not committed yet to a binding target reducing primary energy consumption by 20% by 2020 to boost energy conservation in all sectors. Although it was discussed by the European Council in 2007, so far this objective is only applied by European countries on a voluntary basis.

It puts the annual cost of forest loss at between $2 trillion and $5 trillion.

A study released by Bernstein Research of New York this week argues that oil prices will remain linked to the cost of producing supplies from difficult but crucial fields deep offshore and elsewhere, a cost the research firm puts at between $75 and $80 a barrel. By 2012, the firm said, that cost likely will have jumped to $105 a barrel.

The Arctic has become more stormy in the past 50 years due to the warming climate, which in turn has quickened the pace of drifting sea ice, a new NASA study finds.

"Those companies that are able to keep costs under control continue to do okay. Those that can't are in a world of hurt," said Rick Kment, analyst at DTN in Nebraska.

Corn ethanol caught the imagination of U.S. policymakers as a way to fix multiple problems: rising oil prices, dependence on foreign oil and fossil fuel pollution. But the use of corn for ethanol is now embroiled in controversy, being held responsible by critics for recent spikes in food prices that spurred riots in some countries.

"I don't think it would do that (cut off supplies). It hasn't done that to Western Europe in the past and I don't think it's going to do it intentionally," C. Boyden Gray said.

Experts say no because most drivers assume the dip in prices will be short-lived, and motorists have adjusted their habits accordingly.

"The concept of alternative energy has a lot of momentum," said Dan Pickering, head of research for Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. Securities in Houston. "But lower oil prices make it harder to justify investment. At $50 a barrel, a lot of that investment will die."