Archive by date | April 2009

Australia’s carbon capture institute

Australia, the world’s largest coal exporter, launched an institute last week to galvanise large-scale demonstrations of carbon capture and storage (CCS) (or ‘clean coal’) technology [see Nature coverage here; press release].  Read more

Little progress seen at climate talks

Little progress seen at climate talks

My collegaue Quirin Schiermeier has a round-up of the UN climate talks in Bonn over on Nature News. The overall assessment? Not much progress, with developed and developing nations coming to loggerheads over the issues of money and targets. Quirin writes: Developing countries, including South Africa, India and China, told the Bonn meeting that they expect rich nations to commit to a 40% cut by 2020. Yvo de Boer, the executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), acknowledged that getting rich nations to agree to 25–40% emissions cuts by 2020 will be “very difficult”. Another  … Read more

Stern advice for Copenhagen

Stern advice for Copenhagen

Economist Nicholas Stern released his new book just a couple of weeks ago, in which he updates his assessment of the costs of tackling climate change from his 2006 review for the UK government. In Blueprint for a Safer Planet, Stern frames this as an affordable, effective global deal that could be adopted at the UN negotiations in Copenhagen in December.  Read more