The president has helped transform a debate about forest conservation. Indonesia’S president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, is not known as a conviction politician.

The mining industry has enriched Chile. But its future is precarious. Tourist shops sell polished copper trinkets. Building after building sports a bit of copper cladding.

Less is sometimes more.

Europe’s wood subsidies show the folly of focusing green policy on “renewables”.

The climate may be heating up less in response to greenhouse-gas emissions than was once thought. But that does not mean the problem is going away.

Climate change may be happening more slowly than scientists thought. But the world still needs to deal with it.

Those Latin Americans who can afford one are just as wedded to the car as their counterparts north of the Rio Grande. And thanks to the region’s long boom, more and more have bought vehicles.

Germany’s national energy project is becoming a cause for disunion. Like many German regions, northern Saxony around Leipzig is humming with the word Energiewende.

Removing salt from seawater might help slake some of northern China’s thirst, but it comes at a high price. Chinese officials are fond of grandiose engineering projects.

Growing mounds of electronic scrap can mean profits or scandals.