World Bank Will Pay Countries to Spare Trees

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• China, India Reject G8 Carbon Plan

  Jul 9, 08 8:40 AM CDT
  Neither China nor India agreed to adopt the G8's targets for cutting carbon emissions by 2050 at their joint meeting today. Asia's two big developing economies, joined by Brazil, Mexico, and South Africa, said carbon reductions would endanger their growth and exacerbate poverty, and that rich nations should clean up the mess they had created. The emerging economies' holdout was only one of many signs that the G8 is losing clout, reports the Financial Times. More »

• Blair Pitches Global Climate Pact

  Mar 14, 08 3:44 AM CDT
  Former British prime minister Tony Blair will seek to privately broker a new international agreement to cut carbon emissions by 50% before 2050 that would include China, India and the US, reports the Guardian. Blair has been working on the project with climate change experts since he left office last summer. He's convinced global warming is the biggest threat the world faces and that action must be taken in the next two years or it will be too late to reverse the problem. More »

• Bali: What Was Accomplished?

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  Dismantling the “Berlin Wall of climate change”—the idea that rich nations alone should lead the fight against global warming—was the big breakthrough at the UN climate change conference in Bali, reports Time. It made it possible for the US, after a bruising confrontation and near-collapse of the talks, to finally endorse the agreement, ending nearly a decade of opposition to environmental responsibility. More »

• Deserts Eat Up China's Usable Land

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  With China's deserts spreading another 950 square miles each year, the government is evicting families and replanting farms to stem the tide, the Christian Science Monitor reports from Gansu province. With 20% of the world's population but 7% of its arable land, China's decades-old problem has worsened due to overfarming, deforestation and global warming. More »