The Guardian

Developing countries and human rights groups will clash today at a key UN climate change meeting intended to arrest the destruction of tropical forests. The felling is responsible for almost 20% of annual global carbon emissions, making it a crucial target in the battle against global warming.

CBC News

Hundreds of negotiators are gathering in Ghana’s capital to resume talks on a climate treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol when it expires.

The weeklong conference began Thursday in Accra, with more than 1,000 delegates in attendance.

Talks in the city located in Ghana’s south will focus on pushing developing countries to join the fight against rising greenhouse gas emissions, but come at a difficult time, when many of the world’s poor are more concerned with the cost of food and fuel.

Toronto Star

As other cities target plastic water bottles, Toronto is taking a broad look at a variety of packaging materials – including bottles – to cut down on its waste going to landfill.

The Guardian

The scale of British water consumption and its impact around the world is revealed in a new report today, which warns of the hidden levels needed to produce food and clothing.

The Guardian

Japan is to carry carbon footprint labels on food packaging and other products in an ambitious scheme to persuade companies and consumers to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

The labels, to appear on dozens of items including food and drink, detergents and electrical appliances from next spring, will go further than similar labels already in use elsewhere.

Dot Earth – The New York Times

I flew to Sicily on Monday for a week-long meeting on global risks ranging from Internet disruption to global warming and nuclear proliferation. The annual meetings on “planetary emergencies” are organized by the Ettore Marjorana Center for Scientific Culture, which occupies several converted ancient monasteries and other buildings in the pre-Medieval hilltop town of Erice, and the World Federation of Scientists, in Geneva.

National Geographic News

Grazing musk-oxen and caribou may help protect the fragile Arctic ecosystem from the effects of global warming, according to a new study.

Large grazers could help the region by feasting on woody shrubs and plants that would otherwise take over as temperatures rise and change the way the Arctic looks and functions.

If shrubs dominated, they would darken Arctic lands and absorb more heat from the sun, enhancing warming due to greenhouse gases.

The Independent

A German geography professor has developed a controversial system of mountain “wind-catching” screens which he claims could slow or even halt the dramatic rate at which Europe’s glaciers are melting.

Glaciers across the globe are shrinking fast as a consequence of global warming. In Europe alone, some researchers have predicted that all its glaciers will have vanished by 2100.

Triple Pundit

A recent report from Carnegie Mellon University added numbers to our suspicions that a large portion of China’s emissions are from producing goods for export. 1.7 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide, or 33% of China’s emissions, are the result of activities related to the production of export goods.

The Guardian

At least 200 million people around the world risk their health daily by eating food grown using untreated waste water, some of which may be contaminated with heavy metals and raw sewage, according to major study of 53 world cities.

Urban farmers in 80% of the cities surveyed were found to be using untreated waste water, but the study said they also provided vital food for burgeoning cities at a time of unprecedented water scarcity and the worst food crisis in 30 years.