In San Francisco new building regulations could accelerate the integration of electric plug-in vehicles. The regulations, which have just been introduced, insist that all new houses will come ready equipped with a plug-in electric car charger.

The move puts San Francisco in the lead in the race to becoming US’s most electric-car friendly city. In fact many companies in the area are readying their facilities so that employees can plug in their cars in the staff car park, and utilites companies re figuring out how to deal with the surge in demand for electricity if electric cars really take off. Coming up in the city will be a loan scheme for residents to help pay for electric chargers in their homes (Telegraph).

Which they seem set to do: Nissan is currently taking its electric car, the Leaf on a promotional tour of the US. This car will become available for sale in Europe in December 2011 and to the mass market in 2012.

The New York Times pre-empted the introduction of San Francisco’s regulations with a piece at the weekend explaining San Francisco’s lead in the electric-car area. But as the Leaf does the rounds, Houston has also been touted as the electric car capital. Meanwhile across the pond, according to Time at the weekend, European countries are also apparently in a rush to become electric-car friendly with Denmark firm favourite to win.

Image: Alamy

Olive Heffernan

UN climate chief Yvo de Boer announced today that he will step down on July 1 after nearly four years in the post.

His resignation comes two months after a disappointing climate summit in Copenhagen, where nations failed to broker a deal on reducing greenhouse gas emissions from 2012. Instead, the climate talks, held in the Danish capital in December, produced the Copenhagen Accord, a voluntary agreement to limit warming to 2°C that does not specify how that goal will be achieved.

At the end of the Copenhagen climate conference, de Boer was asked by the press whether he would step down. He responded that he had no intention of leaving his position before seeing a global climate deal in place and he would only step down if he thought that he had been responsible for the failure of the negotiations to make more progress.

De Boer says that the failure of the Copenhagen talks was not a factor in his decision to resign, but as Julian Rush of Channel 4 News says, this seems rather hard to believe.

Over the past four years, de Boer has put his heart and soul into trying to get the world to agree a climate deal. His tears in Bali were evidence of his frustration at the slow pace of the negotiations, as was the life ring he donned at a press conference in Copenhagen.

For de Boer – who got nations to agree the Bali roadmap in 2007 – the outcome of Copenhagen must have been terribly disappointing. And the prospects for the next climate conferencen – scheduled for November in Cancun, Mexico – to deliver a treaty look equally grim.

On leaving his position, de Boer will join the consultancy group KPMG as global advisor on climate and sustainability and work with a number of universities. “I believe the time is ripe for me to take on a new challenge, working on climate and sustainability with the private sector and academia,” he said in a press statement.

Responding to the news of de Boer’s resignation, UK Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband said “Yvo de Boer’s patient work helped produce the Copenhagen Accord which contains commitments covering 80 percent of global emissions, something never previously achieved. We must quickly find a suitable successor, who can oversee the negotiations and reform the UNFCCC to ensure it is up to the massive task of dealing with what are some of the most complex negotiations ever."