Climate change talks pose a difficult challenge.

Financing Crucial To Next Climate Change Pact - UN US: April 14, 2008 WASHINGTON - The global fight against climate change after the Kyoto pact expires will fail unless rich countries can come up with creative ways to finance clean development by poorer nations, a UN official said on Saturday. "We are not going to see that major developing country engagement unless significant financial resources and technology flows begin to be mobilized," Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), said in a media briefing.

Speakers at a workshop called for taking up projects to reduce greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), which would also help sustainable development of the country. The CDM is an arrangement under the Kyoto Protocol allowing developed countries, which emit most greenhouse gases, to invest in projects that reduce emissions in developing countries as an alternative to more expensive emission reductions in their own countries.

Kevin Rudd, Australia's recently elected prime minister, is watching his country being pulled in several directions at once. A natural resource and investment boom are dragging its febrile economy towards China, while climate change and water shortages are threatening its longer-term future. It is an interesting time for a Sinophilic internationalist to take control. For the moment, Mr Rudd, who has made a confident start since his resounding victory in November's election, seems convinced he can manage. But tough decisions in both domestic and foreign policy are pressing.

Bangkok Climate Change Talks Close THAILAND: April 7, 2008 BANGKOK - The first formal talks to draw up a replacement to the Kyoto climate change pact wound up in Thailand on Friday with plans for another seven rounds of negotiations in the next 18 months to tackle global warming. As expected, no major advances were achieved at the meeting, which was mainly intended to flesh out a roadmap from a breakthrough agreement in Bali last year to kick off the talks through to a culmination in Copenhagen at the end of 2009.

US vice presidents have never really been known for the depth of their intellects. But Al Gore, former Vice President of the us, is an exception. He is passionate about the fight against climate change, and his address at the India Today Conclave in Delhi recently highlighted both the dangers and the opportunities that these present.

Italy will achieve its greenhouse gas-cutting targets under the Kyoto protocol by buying carbon credits from Russia, under a deal announced yesterday that could cost the government billions of euros. Italy is expected to miss its Kyoto targets by a total of about 400m to 500m tonnes of carbon dioxide, and will therefore have to make up the shortfall with carbon credits issued by the United Nations. But the government did not say how many credits it would buy under a deal with Carbon Trade and Finance, a joint venture between Russia's Gazprombank and Dresdner Bank.

A spring gale is lashing orthodox climate policy. This week, an article was published in Nature that should shake the certainty of anyone who assumes that the Kyoto protocol approach is the sensible way to go, and that signing the accord is a responsible step for the United States to take.

Even allowing for the low expectations we bring to any lame duck president's final state of the Union address