EQT Q4 profit plummets on low natural gas prices

PITTSBURGH (AP) — Natural gas company EQT Corp. posted sharply lower net income for the fourth quarter because natural gas prices fell, but strong sales and an increase in gas reserves buoyed shares Thursday.

Net income for the fourth quarter fell 47 percent to $ 48 million on revenue of $ 490 million. When adjusted to remove the effect of an interest rate hedge and expenses relating to the sale of a retail division, the company earned 48 cents per share for the quarter.

Analysts polled by FactSet expected the company to earn an adjusted 44 cents per share on sales of $ 423 million.

EQT shares rose $ 1.28, or 2.2 percent, to $ 60.90 in afternoon trading.

A boom in U.S. natural gas production and mild winter temperatures that reduced heating demand have increased supplies of natural gas, and lowered prices.

For the quarter, the company’s revenue per thousand cubic feet of gas fell 16 percent from $ 5.22 to $ 4.39. For the full year, average prices fell 21 percent, the company said.

Company revenue for the year was flat compared with 2011 at $ 1.6 billion. The company’s net income fell 62 percent to $ 183 million. The company’s results were inflated in 2011, however, because of sales of a pipeline and processing center.

After adjusting for these one-time items, the company’s per share earnings fell 32 percent to $ 1.49, from $ 2.19.

But for the year the company’s natural gas production rose 33 percent to a record 256 billion cubic feet, driven by an 85 percent increase in production from the Marcellus shale in Pennsylvania.

The company’s proved reserves of natural gas — an important indication of what the company can hope to produce in the future — increased 12 percent to 6 trillion cubic feet.

Energy News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Te'o tells Couric 'pain' and 'sorrow' was real

NEW YORK (AP) — Manti Te'o told Katie Couric the feelings he had for what turned out to be a fake, online girlfriend were real and reiterated he had nothing to do with the hoax.

The All-American linebacker said he was truly sorrowful and pained after finding out the woman he knew as Lennay Kekua died in September.

Te'o's once-heartwarming tale of inspired play after the deaths of his grandmother and girlfriend on the same day in September was exposed as a bizarre hoax on Jan. 16. Deadspin.com broke the news that the woman Te'o had claimed to be in love with did not exist.

Te'o, who led Notre Dame to a spot in the national championship, has admitted that when his girlfriend's "death" became a story, he misled reporters into thinking he had met her in the flesh.

The star player recounted the whole, strange episode in an interview with Couric that was broadcast Thursday.

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Neanderthal cloning? Pure fantasy

A display of a reconstruction of a Neanderthal man and boy at the Museum for Prehistory in Eyzies-de-Tayac, France.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Arthur Caplan: It would be unethical to try and clone a Neanderthal baby


• Caplan: Downsides include a good chance of producing a baby that is seriously deformed


• He says the future belongs to what we can do to genetically engineer and control microbes


• Caplan: Microbes can make clean fuel, suck up carbon dioxide, clean fat out of arteries

Editor's note: Arthur Caplan is the Drs. William F and Virginia Connolly Mitty professor and director of the Division of Bioethics at New York University Langone Medical Center.

(CNN) -- So now we know -- there won't be a Neanderthal moving into your neighborhood.

Despite a lot of frenzied attention to the intentionally provocative suggestion by a renowned Harvard scientist that new genetic technology makes it possible to splice together a complete set of Neanderthal genes, find an adventurous surrogate mother and use cloning to gin up a Neanderthal baby -- it ain't gonna happen anytime soon.

Nor should it. But there are plenty of other things in the works involving genetic engineering that do merit serious ethical discussion at the national and international levels.

Arthur Caplan

Some thought that the Harvard scientist, George Church, was getting ready to put out an ad seeking volunteer surrogate moms to bear a 35,000-year-old, long-extinct Neanderthal baby. Church had to walk his comments back and note that he was just speculating, not incubating.

Still cloning carries so much mystery and Hollywood glamour thanks to movies such as "Jurassic Park," "The Boys From Brazil" and "Never Let Me Go" that a two-day eruption of the pros and cons of making Neanderthals ensued. That was not necessary. It would be unethical to try and clone a Neanderthal baby.

Why? Because there is no obvious reason to do so. There is no pressing need or remarkable benefit to undertaking such a project. At best it might shed some light on the biology and behavior of a distant ancestor. At worst it would be nothing more than the ultimate reality television show exploitation: An "Octomom"-like surrogate raises a caveman child -- tune in next week to see what her new boyfriend thinks when she tells him that there is a tiny addition in her life and he carries a small club and a tiny piece of flint to sleep with him.

The downsides of trying to clone a Neanderthal include a good chance of killing it, producing a baby that is seriously deformed, producing a baby that lacks immunity to infectious diseases and foods that we have gotten used to, an inability to know what environment to create to permit the child to flourish and a complete lack of understanding of what sort of behavior is "normal" or "appropriate" for such a long-extinct cousin hominid of ours.

When weighed against the risks and the harm that most likely would be done, it would take a mighty big guarantee of benefit to justify this cloning experiment. I am willing to venture that the possible benefit will never, ever reach the point where this list of horrible likely downsides could be overcome.

Even justifying trying to resurrect a woolly mammoth, or a mastodon, or the dodo bird or any other extinct animal gets ethically thorny. How many failures would be acceptable to get one viable mastodon? Where would the animal live? What would we feed it? Who would protect it from poachers, gawkers and treasure hunters? It is not so simple to take a long dead species, make enough of them so they don't die of isolation and lack of social stimulation and then find an environment that is close enough and safe enough compared with that which they once roamed.

In any event the most interesting aspects of genetic engineering do not involve making humans or Neanderthals or mammoths. They involve ginning up microbes to do things that we really need doing such as making clean fuel, sucking up carbon dioxide, cleaning fat out of our arteries, giving us a lot more immunity to nasty bacteria and viruses and helping us make plastics and chemicals more efficiently and cheaply.

In trying to make these kinds of microbes, you can kill all you want without fear of ethical condemnation. And if the new bug does not like the environment in which it has to exist to live well, that will be just too darn bad.

The ethical challenge of this kind of synthetic biology is that it can be used by bad guys for bad purposes. Biological weapons can be ginned up and microbes created that only infect people with certain genes that commonly associate with racial or ethnic groups.

Rather than worry about what will happen to real estate values should a new crop of "Flintstones" move in down the street, our public officials, religious groups and ethicists need to get serious about how much regulation the genetic engineering of microbes needs, how can we detect what terrorists might try to use, what sort of controls do we need to prevent accidents and who is going to pay if a bug turns out to cause more harm than good.

We love to think that the key to tomorrow lies in what humanity can be designed or empowered to do. Thus, the fascination with human cloning. In reality, at least for a long time to come, the future belongs to what we can do to design and control microbes. That is admittedly duller, but it is far better to follow a story that is true than one such as Neanderthal cloning that is pure, speculative fantasy.

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The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Arthur Caplan.

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Girl: 'My sister's on fire'

3 children were injured, 1 critically after a fire started inside their apartment. (WGN - Chicago)

By Carlos Sadovi and Rosemary Regina Sobol




Tribune reporters

2:20 p.m. CST, January 24, 2013

Hearing screams in the hallway, Vanessa King stepped out of her apartment to see her neighbor rushing down the stairs while cradling a little girl crying from burns over half her body.

"He put a blanket around her. He was holding her. He was telling her it was going to be OK," King said.

The neighbor, Clyde Harden, carried the 4-year-old girl into an ambulance that took her to Comer Children's Hospital, where she remained in critical condition today.

The girl was with her 9-year-old brother and 16-year-old sister when her bunk bed caught fire around 7:15 p.m. Wednesday in a four-flat in the 1000 block of West 76th Street, officials said.

The 16-year-old was in a back bedroom doing her homework when the boy ran to her room, neighbors said. "He ran back there to tell her [their sister] was on fire," said Sandra Gray, who lives downstairs. "She came downstairs and was knocking on everyone's door. She was screaming, 'My sister's on fire.' "

Gray said she and her husband and a neighbor ran up and saw the bottom bunk bed on fire. "All I saw was that the bed was on fire and the baby was burned," Gray said. "You could see the bed on fire."

She said the 16-year-old tried to pull the little girl from the bed and burned her hands. Gray's husband and the neighbor finally put the fire out as firefighters and paramedics arrived, she said. Gray said the girl was conscious but badly burned.

Harden, who rushed up with Gray, said he grabbed hold of the girl and helped put out the fire. “I believe that she was sheltered by God already,” he told reporters on the scene. “Somebody was there for her.”

Though an official cause has not been determined, authorities are looking into the possibility that someone inside the home had been playing with a lighter or matches, according to Fire Department spokesman Larry Langford.

King said she was struggling with how to talk to her 5-year-old daughter about her friend’s injury, saying her girl had nightmares through the night.

King said her daughter told her that "my friend needs to get her skin back. The doctor is going to take care and God is going to take care of her."

csadovi@tribune.com

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North Korea to target U.S. with nuclear, rocket tests

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea said on Thursday it would carry out further rocket launches and a nuclear test that would target the United States, dramatically stepping up its threats against a country it called its "sworn enemy".

The announcement by the country's top military body came a day after the U.N. Security Council agreed to a U.S.-backed resolution to censure and sanction North Korea for a rocket launch in December that breached U.N. rules.

North Korea is not believed to have the technology to deliver a nuclear warhead capable of hitting the continental United States, although its December launch showed it had the capacity to deliver a rocket that could travel 10,000 km (6,200 miles), potentially putting San Francisco in range, according to an intelligence assessment by South Korea.

"We are not disguising the fact that the various satellites and long-range rockets that we will fire and the high-level nuclear test we will carry out are targeted at the United States," North Korea's National Defence Commission said, according to state news agency KCNA.

North Korea is believed by South Korea and other observers to be "technically ready" for a third nuclear test, and the decision to go ahead rests with leader Kim Jong-un, who pressed ahead with the December rocket launch in defiance of the U.N. sanctions.

China, the one major diplomatic ally of the isolated and impoverished North, agreed to the U.S.-backed resolution and it also supported resolutions in 2006 and 2009 after Pyongyang's two earlier nuclear tests.

Thursday's statement by North Korea represents a huge challenge to Beijing as it undergoes a leadership transition, with Xi Jinping due to take office in March.

China's Foreign Ministry called for calm and restraint and a return to six-party talks, but effectively singled out North Korea, urging the "relevant party" not to take any steps that would raise tensions.

"We hope the relevant party can remain calm and act and speak in a cautious and prudent way and not take any steps which may further worsen the situation," ministry spokesman Hong Lei told reporters at a regular press briefing.

North Korea has rejected proposals to restart the talks aimed at reining in its nuclear capacity. The United States, China, Russia, Japan and the two Koreas are the six parties involved.

"After all these years and numerous rounds of six-party talks we can see that China's influence over North Korea is actually very limited. All China can do is try to persuade them not to carry out their threats," said Cai Jian, an expert on Korea at Fudan University in Shanghai.

Analysts said the North could test as early as February as South Korea prepares to install a new, untested president or that it could choose to stage a nuclear explosion to coincide with former ruler Kim Jong-il's Feb 16 birthday.

"North Korea will have felt betrayed by China for agreeing to the latest U.N. resolution and they might be targeting (China) as well (with this statement)," said Lee Seung-yeol, senior research fellow at Ewha Institute of Unification Studies in Seoul.

U.S. URGES NO TEST

Washington urged North Korea not to proceed with a third test just as the North's statement was published on Thursday.

"Whether North Korea tests or not is up to North Korea," Glyn Davies, the top U.S. envoy for North Korean diplomacy, said in the South Korean capital of Seoul.

"We hope they don't do it. We call on them not to do it," Davies said after a meeting with South Korean officials. "This is not a moment to increase tensions on the Korean peninsula."

The North was banned from developing missile and nuclear technology under sanctions dating from its 2006 and 2009 nuclear tests.

A South Korean military official said the concern now is that Pyongyang could undertake a third nuclear test using highly enriched uranium for the first time, opening a second path to a bomb.

North Korea's 2006 nuclear test using plutonium produced a puny yield equivalent to one kiloton of TNT - compared with 13-18 kilotons for the Hiroshima bomb - and U.S. intelligence estimates put the 2009 test's yield at roughly two kilotons

North Korea is estimated to have enough fissile material for about a dozen plutonium warheads, although estimates vary, and intelligence reports suggest that it has been enriching uranium to supplement that stock and give it a second path to the bomb.

According to estimates from the Institute for Science and International Security from late 2012, North Korea could have enough weapons grade uranium for 21-32 nuclear weapons by 2016 if it used one centrifuge at its Yongbyon nuclear plant to enrich uranium to weapons grade.

North Korea has not yet mastered the technology needed to make a nuclear warhead small enough for an intercontinental missile, most observers say, and needs to develop the capacity to shield any warhead from re-entry into the earth's atmosphere.

North Korea gave no time-frame for the coming test and often employs harsh rhetoric in response to U.N. and U.S. actions that it sees as hostile.

The bellicose statement on Thursday appeared to dent any remaining hopes that Kim Jong-un, believed to be 30 years old, would pursue a different path from his father, Kim Jong-il, who oversaw the country's military and nuclear programs.

The older Kim died in December 2011.

"The UNSC (Security Council) resolution masterminded by the U.S. has brought its hostile policy towards the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (North Korea) to its most dangerous stage," the commission was quoted as saying.

(Additional reporting by Christine Kim in SEOUL, Ben Blanchard and Sui-Lee Wee in Beijing; Writing by David Chance; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan and Ron Popeski)

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S&P 500 futures fall after Apple results

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The S&P 500 rose for a sixth day on Wednesday after stronger-than-expected profits from IBM and Google but the rally could be halted as Apple's after-hours miss send its shares lower.

The S&P was just 4.7 percent from its all-time closing high as IBM's and Google's earnings, released after Tuesday's close, followed on the heels of stronger U.S. economic data.

"People were kind of nervous about earnings coming into this quarter but numbers have shown so far strength in earnings," said King Lip, chief investment officer at Baker Avenue Asset Management in San Francisco.

But Apple , still the largest U.S. publicly traded company, fell more than 4 percent in extended trading after sales of its flagship iPhone came in below analyst targets and quarterly revenue slightly missed Wall Street expectations.

Declining issues beat advancers in both the NYSE and Nasdaq during regular market hours, in a sign the market's rally may be overstretched. The broad Russell 2000 index <.rut> closed the day down 0.3 percent after earlier hitting and intraday historic high just below 900 points.

Shares in IBM Corp , the world's largest technology services company, climbed 4.4 percent during regular market hours to $204.72, providing just about all of the Dow's 67-point gain.

Also helping the tech sector was a 5.5 percent jump in Google Inc to $741.50. The Internet search company reported its core business outpaced expectations and revenue was higher than expected.

The S&P technology sector <.splrct> rose 1.2 percent.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> rose 66.96 points or 0.49 percent, to 13,779.17, the S&P 500 <.spx> gained 2.22 points or 0.15 percent, to 1,494.78, and the Nasdaq Composite <.ixic> added 10.49 points or 0.33 percent, to 3,153.67.

The benchmark S&P 500 is a mere 0.35 percent away from hitting 1,500, a level not seen since December 12, 2007.

Netflix shares soared 32 percent, above $136, after the video subscription service said it added subscribers in the United States and abroad and posted a quarterly profit.

LED maker Cree Inc jumped 22 percent to $40.85 after it forecast a higher-than-expected third-quarter profit, and reported results above analysts' estimates.

Upscale leather goods maker Coach Inc plunged 16.4 percent to $50.75 after reporting sales that missed expectations.

Clearing a market hurdle, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a Republican-led plan to extend the country's borrowing authority until mid May. This delays a confrontation in Congress similar to one in 2011, which generated a stalemate that triggered the first-ever U.S. debt rating downgrade.

Thomson Reuters data through Wednesday showed that of the 99 S&P 500 companies that have reported earnings so far, 67.7 percent have topped expectations, above the 65 percent average beat over the past four quarters.

Overall, S&P 500 fourth-quarter earnings rose 2.8 percent, according to Thomson Reuters data. That estimate is above the 1.9 percent forecast at the start of earnings season.

Top U.S. manufacturers sounded a confident note about their expectations for 2013 on Wednesday as fears of the year-end "fiscal cliff" faded into memory.

In the regular session, about 6.1 billion shares changed hands on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and NYSE MKT, below the 2012 daily average of about 6.45 billion.

On the NYSE, roughly 15 issues fell for every 14 that rose and on Nasdaq seven declined for every five gainers.

(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos; Editing by Nick Zieminski)

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Into deep space: second U.S. firm takes aim at mining asteroids

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., Jan 22 – A team of entrepreneurs and engineers unveiled plans on Tuesday for a space mining company that would tap nearby asteroids for raw materials to fuel satellites and manufacture components in orbit.

Deep Space Industries, based in Santa Monica, California, said its inaugural mission is targeted for 2015, when it would send a small hitchhiker spacecraft called “Firefly” on a six-month expedition to survey an as-yet-unidentified asteroid.

The 55-pound (25-kg) satellite, about the size of a laptop computer, would be launched as a secondary payload aboard a commercial rocket carrying a communications satellite or other robotic probe.

About 1,000 small asteroids relatively close to Earth are discovered every year. Most, if not all, are believed to contain water and gases, such as methane, which can be turned into fuel, as well as metals, such as nickel, which can be used in three-dimensional printers to manufacture components, David Gump, chief executive of Deep Space Industries, said.

Gump is a co-founder of three previous space and technology start-ups, including Astrobotic Technology, which is focused on exploration and development of lunar resources.

“There is really nothing in the business plan that Deep Space Industries is pursuing that cannot be done with technology research already accomplished in laboratories across the planet,” said John Mankins, a former NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory manager who is the start-up company’s chief technical officer.

“The technology may not have been used in space for the exact purposes that we propose, but the fundamental technologies are really at hand,” Mankins said.

Company officials, who unveiled their plans at a press conference at the Museum of Flying in Santa Monica, California, that was also webcast, did not comment on their financial backing except to say they were looking for investors.

Deep Space Industries is the second company to unveil plans to mine asteroids, rocky bodies of various sizes that orbit the sun. So far about 9,500 asteroids have been found in orbits that come near Earth. Small fragments of asteroids regularly pass through the planet’s atmosphere, lighting up the night sky as they incinerate and occasionally surviving to become meteorites.

Last year, Planetary Resources, a Bellevue, Washington-based company backed by high-profile investors including Google executives Larry Page and Eric Schmidt and advisers like filmmaker James Cameron, announced a program that would begin with small, low-cost telescopes to scout for potentially lucrative asteroids.

Firefly, as well as a follow-on line of planned asteroid sample-return satellites called Dragonfly, would be based on miniature research spacecraft known as CubeSats that are built from commercially available, off-the-shelf electronic components.

The cost of a Firefly mission would be about $ 20 million, half of which the company expects will come from government and research institute contracts and half from corporate advertising, sponsorships and other marketing ventures, said Gump.

The follow-on Dragonfly missions, scheduled to begin in 2016, would entail returning 50 to 100 pounds (23 to 45 kg) of material from select, high-value asteroids, an endeavor that would take two to three years.

In addition to selling samples, Deep Space Industries wants to grind up some of the material, extract metals and other valuable commodities and develop the technology to produce fuel and components, such as solar cells, in space.

The company said it has a patent pending on a three-dimensional printer called a “Microgravity Foundry” that uses lasers to deposit nickel in precise patterns in zero gravity.

On Earth, similar printers produce three-dimensional components by depositing layers of nickel metal powder. The process is somewhat like the buildup of ink on paper in a traditional ink jet printer.

Gump said the patent was filed within the past 18 months and is not yet listed in publicly accessible databases.

The ultimate goal is to build a fleet of robotic ships to extract resources for fuel and to mine valuable minerals from asteroids.

“We’re at an early stage,” said Gump. “It’ll probably be 2019 or 2020 before we’ll have commercial quantities of propellant for sale.”

(Editing by Jane Sutton and Leslie Adler)

(This story corrects name and location of museum in 8th paragraph)

Science News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Seau's family sues NFL over brain injuries

Add Junior Seau's family to the thousands of people who are suing the NFL over the long-term damage caused by concussions.

Seau's ex-wife and four children sued the league Wednesday, saying the former linebacker's suicide was the result of brain disease caused by violent hits he sustained while playing football.

The wrongful death lawsuit, filed in California Superior Court in San Diego, blames the NFL for its "acts or omissions" that hid the dangers of repetitive blows to the head. It says Seau developed chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) from those hits, and accuses the NFL of deliberately ignoring and concealing evidence of the risks associated with traumatic brain injuries.

Seau died at age 43 of a self-inflicted gunshot in May. He was diagnosed with CTE, based on posthumous tests, earlier this month.

An Associated Press review in November found that more than 3,800 players have sued the NFL over head injuries in at least 175 cases as the concussion issue has gained attention in recent years. The total number of plaintiffs is 6,000 when spouses, relatives and other representatives are included.

Scores of the concussion lawsuits have been brought together before U.S. District Judge Anita B. Brody in Philadelphia.

"Our attorneys will review it and respond to the claims appropriately through the court," the NFL said in a statement Wednesday.

Helmet manufacturer Riddell Inc., also is a defendant, with the Seau family saying Riddell was "negligent in their design, testing, assembly, manufacture, marketing, and engineering of the helmets" used by NFL players. The suit says the helmets were unreasonably dangerous and unsafe.

Riddell issued a statement saying it is, "confident in the integrity of our products and our ability to successfully defend our products against challenges."

Seau was one of the best linebackers during his 20 seasons in the NFL, retiring in 2009.

"We were saddened to learn that Junior, a loving father and teammate, suffered from CTE," the family said in a statement released to the AP. "While Junior always expected to have aches and pains from his playing days, none of us ever fathomed that he would suffer a debilitating brain disease that would cause him to leave us too soon.

"We know this lawsuit will not bring back Junior. But it will send a message that the NFL needs to care for its former players, acknowledge its decades of deception on the issue of head injuries and player safety, and make the game safer for future generations."

Plaintiffs are listed as Gina Seau, Junior's ex-wife; Junior's children Tyler, Sydney, Jake and Hunter, and Bette Hoffman, trustee of Seau's estate.

The lawsuit accuses the league of glorifying the violence in pro football, and creating the impression that delivering big hits "is a badge of courage which does not seriously threaten one's health."

It singles out NFL Films and some of its videos for promoting the brutality of the game.

"In 1993's 'NFL Rocks,' Junior Seau offered his opinion on the measure of a punishing hit: 'If I can feel some dizziness, I know that guy is feeling double (that)," the suit says.

The NFL consistently has denied allegations similar to those in the lawsuit.

"The NFL, both directly and in partnership with the NIH, Centers for Disease Control and other leading organizations, is committed to supporting a wide range of independent medical and scientific research that will both address CTE and promote the long-term health and safety of athletes at all levels," the league told the AP after it was revealed Seau had CTE.

The lawsuit claims money was behind the NFL's actions.

"The NFL knew or suspected that any rule changes that sought to recognize that link (to brain disease) and the health risk to NFL players would impose an economic cost that would significantly and adversely change the profit margins enjoyed by the NFL and its teams," the Seaus said in the suit.

The National Institutes of Health, based in Bethesda, Md., studied three unidentified brains, one of which was Seau's, and said the findings on Seau were similar to autopsies of people "with exposure to repetitive head injuries."

"It was important to us to get to the bottom of this, the truth," Gina Seau told the AP then. "And now that it has been conclusively determined from every expert that he had obviously had CTE, we just hope it is taken more seriously. You can't deny it exists, and it is hard to deny there is a link between head trauma and CTE. There's such strong evidence correlating head trauma and collisions and CTE."

In the final years of his life, Seau went through wild behavior swings, according to Gina and to 23-year-old son, Tyler. There also were signs of irrationality, forgetfulness, insomnia and depression.

"He emotionally detached himself and would kind of 'go away' for a little bit," Tyler Seau said. "And then the depression and things like that. It started to progressively get worse."

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2013 could be 'climate game-changer'

An ice sculpture entitled 'Minimum Monument' by Brazilian artist Nele Azevedo outside Berlin's Concert Hall, September 2, 2009.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• The "neglected" risk of climate change seems to be rising to the top of leaders' agendas


• Extreme weather events are costing the global economy billions of dollars each year


• Gas can be an important bridge to a lower carbon future but it's not the answer


• More investment in renewable energy is needed, with fewer risks

Editor's note: Andrew Steer is President and CEO of the World Resources Institute, a think tank that works with governments, businesses and civil society to find sustainable solutions to environmental and development challenges.

(CNN) -- As leaders gather for the World Economic Forum in Davos, signs of economic hope are upon us. The global economy is on the mend. Worldwide, the middle class is expanding by an estimated 100 million per year. And the quality of life for millions in Asia and Africa is growing at an unprecedented pace.

Threats abound, of course. One neglected risk -- climate change -- appears to at last be rising to the top of agendas in business and political circles. When the World Economic Forum recently asked 1,000 leaders from industry, government, academia, and civil society to rank risks over the coming decade for the Global Risks 2013 report, climate change was in the top three. And in his second inaugural address, President Obama identified climate change as a major priority for his Administration.

Andrew Steer

For good reason: last year was the hottest year on record for the continental United States, and records for extreme weather events were broken around the world. We are seeing more droughts, wildfires, and rising seas. The current U.S. drought will wipe out approximately 1% of the U.S. GDP and is on course to be the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history. Damage from Hurricane Sandy will cost another 0.5% of GDP. And a recent study found that the cost of climate change is about $1.2 trillion per year globally, or 1.6% of global GDP.

Shifting to low-carbon energy sources is critical to mitigating climate change's impacts. Today's global energy mix is changing rapidly, but is it heading in the right direction?

Coal is the greatest driver of carbon dioxide emissions from energy, accounting for more than 40% of the total worldwide. Although coal demand is falling in the United States -- with 55 coal-powered plants closed in the past year -- it's growing globally. The World Resources Institute (WRI) recently identified 1,200 proposed new coal plants around the world. And last year, the United States hit a record-high level of coal exports—arguably transferring U.S. emissions abroad.

Meanwhile, shale gas is booming. Production in the United States has increased nearly tenfold since 2005, and China, India, Argentina, and many others have huge potential reserves. This development can be an economic blessing in many regions, and, because carbon emissions of shale gas are roughly half those of coal, it can help us get onto a lower carbon growth path.

However, while gas is an important bridge to a low carbon future—and can be a component of such a future—it can't get us fully to where we need to be. Greenhouse gas emissions in industrial countries need to fall by 80-90% by 2050 to prevent climate change's most disastrous impacts. And there is evidence that gas is crowding out renewables.

Renewable energy -- especially solar and wind power -- are clear winners when it comes to reducing emissions. Unfortunately, despite falling prices, the financial markets remain largely risk-averse. Many investors are less willing to finance renewable power. As a result of this mindset, along with policy uncertainty and the proliferation of low-cost gas, renewable energy investment dropped 11%, to $268 billion, last year.

What do we need to get on track?

Incentivizing renewable energy investment

Currently, more than 100 countries have renewable energy targets, more than 40 developing nations have introduced feed-in tariffs, and countries from Saudi Arabia to South Africa are making big bets on renewables as a growth market. Many countries are also exploring carbon-trading markets, including the EU, South Korea, and Australia. This year, China launched pilot trading projects in five cities and two provinces, with a goal of a national program by 2015.

Removing market barriers

Despite growing demand for renewable energy from many companies, this demand often remains unmet due to numerous regulatory, financial, and psychological barriers in the marketplace.

In an effort to address these, WRI just launched the Green Power Market Development Group in India, bringing together industry, government, and NGOs to build critical support for renewable energy markets. A dozen major companies from a variety of sectors—like Infosys, ACC, Cognizant, IBM, WIPRO, and others— have joined the initiative. This type of government-industry-utility partnership, built upon highly successful models elsewhere, can spur expanded clean energy development. It will be highlighted in Davos this week at meetings of the Green Growth Action Alliance (G2A2).

De-risking investments

For technical, policy, and financial reasons, risks are often higher for renewables than fossil-based energy. Addressing these risks is the big remaining task to bring about the needed energy transformation. Some new funding mechanisms are emerging that can help reduce risk and thus leverage large sums of financing. For example, the Green Climate Fund could, if well-designed, be an important venue to raise funds and drive additional investments from capital markets. Likewise, multi-lateral development banks' recent $175 billion commitment to sustainable transport could help leverage more funds from the private and public sectors.

Some forward-looking companies are seeking to create internal incentives for green investments. For example, companies like Unilever, Johnson & Johnson, and UPS have been taking actions to reduce internal hurdle rates and shift strategic thinking to the longer-term horizons that many green strategies need.

Davos is exactly the type of venue for finding solutions to such issues, which requires leadership and coalition-building from the private and public sectors. For example, the the G2A2, an alliance of CEOs committed to addressing climate and environmental risks, will launch the Green Investment Report with precisely the goal of "unlocking finance for green growth".

Depending on what happens at Davos—and other forums and meetings like it throughout the year—2013 could just be a game-changer.

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The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Andrew Steer.

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2 men died in high-rise fire after rescuing elderly woman: officials

A high-rise fire on Chicago's south side killed two men and seriously injured a woman.

The two men who died in a South Shore high-rise fire had rescued an elderly woman on the seventh floor and had returned to the burning apartment with fire extinguishers when they apparently were overcome by smoke, officials said today.

Jameel Johnson, 36, and John Fasula, 50, were working in the 16-story building in the 6700 block of South Shore Drive Tuesday morning when the fire broke out on the seventh floor, officials said.

The two heard an 81-year-old woman screaming for help and placed her inside an elevator and pressed a button to take her to the first floor, according to police and David A. Fields Jr., Johnson’s cousin.

Fasula and Johnson returned to her apartment with fire extinguishers, police said. They were later found by firefighters, collapsed on the floor and were in full cardiac arrest, according to police and fire officials.

The woman collapsed on the floor of the lobby after the elevator doors opened, but was revived by paramedics and taken to the University of Chicago Hospitals, where she was listed in critical condition from smoke inhalation, according to police.

“He died a hero,” Fields said in a telephone interview. “They died saving a woman’s life.”

Johnson, the father of two girls, was working as a private contractor for a cable company, his family said. He did not like being inside high-rise buildings, but the company could not find a replacement, relatives said.

“He went with the understanding that maybe it was just a service call and he could be in and out,” Fields said. “He didn’t want to be in the high-rise building, that was his whole thing. He didn’t want to be there.”

Relatives described Johnson, an Englewood native, as a fun-loving man who did whatever he could to take care of his fiance and two children, ages 14 and 3. Johnson had ventured into different careers over the years, but returned to the cable business about a year ago.

“He was a good father who was just trying to make sure his kids had the best,” Fields said.

He had been with his fiance for 15 years and the family lives in Gary, Ind., Fields said. His youngest daughter still doesn’t understand what happened, relatives said.

“She’s still looking for her father to come home,” said Johnson’s aunt, Rosemary Cohns. “That’s the hardest part.”

Relatives of Fasula said they were not surprised to hear he risked his life for someone else.

“That’s how my brother-in-law was,” said Michelle Kozicki, 65, Fasula’s sister-in-law. “There’s never going to be another one like my brother-in-law Johnny. There’s not a bad bone in his body.”

Fasula was a maintenance manager for the CTA, spokeswoman Lambrini Lukidis said. He started working for the transit agency in 1983.

Fasula’s family knew he was at the apartment building for a “side job,” though she wasn’t sure what the work entailed. Kozicki said it was common for Fasula, who had been married for nearly 40 years, to work jobs outside his day job at the CTA.
 
“He didn’t like to sit still,” she said.

He went out of his way to help his father before he died in 2009. He was with him “every step of the way,” Kozicki said. For example, Fasula took time off of work to drive his father to doctor’s appointments.

Cook County Commissioner John Daley, who knew Fasula through his father, called him an "outstanding young man" whose death is a "tremendous loss."

"If you were in trouble, John was always there," Daley said.

Fire officials have said the fire apparently started in a bedroom on the seventh floor. Fire Department spokesman Larry Langford said the cause is undetermined pending further analysis of electrical information.  It does not appear suspicious, he added.

“In short, it generally means we have to have some items looked at,” Langford said of the analysis.

chicagobreaking@tribune.com

Twitter:@ChicagoBreaking

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