The climate negotiations in this month will set the post-Copenhagen agenda, and the strategic issue for developing countries is whether to focus on the new architecture of monitoring, reporting and verification or on developing a new framework that redefines the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities. (Letters)
The industry most often accused of being responsible for the excess carbon dioxide in our atmosphere is, strange as it may seem, desperate to buy more of the stuff. Oil companies are paying industrial plants and natural gas processing facilities to bottle their waste CO2, and are then pumping it underground.
Asian pollution is a global problem. Millions of tonnes of soot, sulphur dioxide and other pollutants are fast-tracked into the stratosphere each year by the summer monsoon.
There are times when letting go is the best way to move forward. When the US abandoned plans for a nuclear waste repository at Yucca mountain, Nevada, there was no alternative in sight. Now, less than two months after that decision to walk away from a decades-long, multibillion-dollar boondoggle, a promising solution is coming into view.
If some of the spectacular calving of ice shelves in Antarctica is down to global warming, then why did we not see break-ups on the same scale in Greenland, which is much warmer?
Science sometimes produces world-threatening technologies. Thirty-five years ago, genetic engineering was in its infancy, but dangers such as the creation of new viruses were clearly visible. So the field's top scientists headed to Asilomar in California to discuss how to regulate their work. They recognised the need to pause and think before plunging into action.
Plans are taking shape for the day when a global coalition may have to "hack the planet" in a bid to reverse the ravages of global warming. Proposals to cool the Earth by deploying sunshades or sucking carbon dioxide from the atmosphere were considered fanciful just a few years ago, but are now being considered by politicians in the US and UK.
