Energy

Warming is already set on course to reach dangerous levels. But, if we do next to nothing — the course we are on — it could get a lot worse, writes Peter Boyle.

The recent avalanche and flash flood in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand was a result of climate change and the rapid development of hydro-electric power plants, writes Sarosh Bana.

Reports of a giant breakaway iceberg and a new 64-kilometre crack in the Larsen ice shelf in the Antarctic peninsula — dramatic indicators of warmer weather — seem to have had little or no impact on the major greenhouse gas culprits at the world climate conference in Berlin. Australia and the United States are leading the charge against strict controls of greenhouse gas emissions in the two-week conference, which began on March 28.

Despite PM John Howard's call for a "full-blooded debate" about energy, greenhouse and uranium mining, there has been little discussion about renewable energy sources such as wind power.

Fidel Castro's rousing six-minute address to the Earth Summit in Rio said everything delegates had come from around the world to hear, says Dr Judy Henderson, Australian Council for Overseas Aid representative at the Earth Summit in June.