U.S. emissions dropped 3.4 percent in 2012, more than double Europe’s less impressive reductions. America is taking the green lead not through elaborate subsidy schemes, but because of better energy efficiency and the bounty of natural gas that fracking has provided.

Happy Sunday, TAI readers! We trust you’ve had a relaxing (and hopefully productive) weekend. As you prepare yourself for the week ahead, take the time to look back on what you may have missed on the site over the week behind:

Cutting off natural gas supplies would hurt Russia as well as Europe, but a potential deal with Beijing could give Moscow even more leverage in its standoff with the West.

A new report finds that the United States is woefully underprepared for oil and gas drilling in the Arctic. We’re playing catch-up in a region with both commercial and strategic interests.

Recent piracy in the Strait of Malacca is a reminder of the fragility of some of the world’s most important energy trading routes. American hydrocarbon exports would be largely unconstrained by such vulnerabilities, and would bolster international energy security.

The stress of fast-paced, polluted urban life in China has pushed waves of the country’s middle class to pick up and move abroad. The country’s growth-at-all-costs policy risks producing something of a brain drain.

Take that, Solyndra: A Japanese firm plans to generate solar power using panels on satellites in geosynchronous orbit.

Support for the Keystone pipeline is at an all-time high. Greens are failing to convince the public of the project’s faults, largely because the facts don’t support their case.

The Russian gas company Gazprom just announced a massive additional $11.4 billion charge for Ukraine. The charge comes under the controversial “take-or-pay” contract clause, and will put further strain on a state already struggling to stay afloat.

The German government wants to lower the country’s retirement age and pay out more in pensions. That’s not a smart move for the EU country with the oldest population and lowest birthrate.