Green Options

The developed countries are struggling to build national consensus for ambitious mitigation measures while the developing countries have gained the higher ground in the negotiations for the next climate deal by announcing voluntary sectoral emission reduction targets.

US has once again made unreasonable demands that developing countries adopt similar emission reduction targets as the rich countries. Such demands are against the Bali (Climate Conference) Action Plan and threaten to derail the climate negotiations.

EU demands that advanced developing countries take more responsibility by partially funding their carbon emission reduction programs and contribute to the international adaptation fund to help developing and poor countries.

India has welcomed United States’ change in climate change policy but continues to reject demands to do more to freeze or reduce its own carbon emissions.

Barack Obama’s new and unified approach to fight climate change and economic crisis not only holds great promises for the United States but could also help build pressure on the developing countries to step up actions to control their carbon emissions.

Both the developed and developing world agree that they have got to act quickly to curb carbon emissions but none is willing to take the initiative on the economic front of the fight against climate change.

A professor in Brazil is helping to bring solar powered wireless internet to communities in need. The low-cost “access point in a box” he has created needs no internet connection, electricity, or assembly to function. It is being tested on lamp posts in a number of locations. Innovations such as these are becoming more common around the world, and are leveling the economic playing field and creating countless benefits for people who could otherwise not pay for the internet.

Understandably, developing countries face unique challenges in addressing concerns related to the environment. Apart from the environment, poor developing countries have more pressing and immediate problems that oftentimes present themselves so forcefully that politicians are forced to make too many compromises, particulalrly on environmental issues.

But simply ignoring “going green” will indeed destroy the base of natural resources that developing countries need for sustainable economic, social, and political prosperity.

“For most, emission reduction is not a viable option in the near [...]

Set for its world premiere today at the Cannes Film Festival, and then its wide release on Thursday, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull will feature Peru prominently in its story. One preview for the movie shows a plane flying over the Nazca Lines and according to another the characters will also take their quest to find the Crystal Skull into Peru’s jungles. Looking back at the past Indiana Jones movies, Peruvians should hold their breath before cheering the arrival of Indiana Jones in theaters.

You know, just 10 years ago, few vacations sounded as thrilling to me as an "eco-vacation." Maybe two weeks in a rustic part of Costa Rica on the lookout for wild scarlet, green-wing and blue-and-gold macaws squawking in the trees, flocking to claylicks or just soaring through the warm, moist tropical air from one spot to another. Or, though I’m not the cold-weather-type, cruising along the Alaskan coast to drink in the

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