NB – NATURE’S BALI SPECIAL WILL BE LIVE SOON

The world’s leading climate experts, and some very lucky journalists, are camped out in Bali this week attempting to thrash out a deal to save the planet from global warming. Olive Heffernan is there for Nature Reports Climate Change and has a round up of what is up.

It is also timely that a new review in Nature Geoscience shows the tropics expanded by 2.5 degrees latitude over the last 25 years; the same margin as models predicted for the whole of this century (study, example news coverage).

Unfortunately, as the Daily Telegraph reports, those in Bali can’t even agree on a way to offset the carbon they all emitted in getting there. The paper estimates that the summit will cause emissions of about 100,000 tonnes of CO2, “on a par with the annual emissions of the African state of Chad”.

Still, it’s a little early to be writing off the talks. Here’s a round up of some of the other news so far.

– Indonesia’s Environment Minister Rachmat Witoelar, the meeting’s host, thinks business must be helped to invest in tackling climate change (Reuters).

– Spontaneous applause for Australia over their agreement to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, first announced last week (Sidney Morning Herald).

– Korea is not going to accept compulsory emission reduction (Korea Times).

– The Chinese delegation insisted that ‘principles of common but differentiated responsibilities’ must be acknowledged (Xinhua).

Image: Alamy