As the latest round of United Nations climate negotiations began in Durban, South Africa, expectations could scarcely have been lower. A globally binding deal is further away than ever. That makes considerable warming from climate change inevitable.
The "triumph" of Cancún's climate negotiations may be largely diplomatic, but the foundations for a new, low-carbon world are already being laid regardless.
Until late November 2009, Phil Jones was just another successful scientist - director of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, UK, and respected by his peers, but hardly a public figure. That changed abruptly when a selection of emails spanning more than a decade were hacked from the CRU and placed on a public server.
Two-hundred-and-fifty billion tonnes. That's the bottom line. If we are serious about avoiding dangerous climate change, 250,000 megatonnes is the maximum amount of carbon we can put into the atmosphere. Keep going at current rates and we will have used up that ration in 20 years.
As the Copenhagen conference on climate change draws closer, a new analysis shows that the pledges made by rich nations will not be enough to avert a dangerous rise in temperatures.
THE back-up plan for saving the world is no longer a joke. This week, a major scientific institution has published a comprehensive review of possible ways to engineer the climate to reverse global warming. The UK Royal Society's review of geoengineering will make it difficult for governments to ignore the issue.
