Sergio Abranches

Last week, China’s National Development and Reform Commission reportedly directed seven regions to set overall emissions control targets and submit proposals for how caps should be allocated. The directive, which encompasses the cities of Beijing, Chongqing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Tianjin and the provinces of Guangdong and Hubei, aims to establish cap-and-trade pilot projects for the country’s carbon market, meant to be in place by 2015. More »

Sergio Abranches

Brazilian state-owned financial institutions will finance research and development of cellulosic ethanol, reports the Brazilian daily newspaper Valor Econômico. More »

Crops that can cope with sudden fluctuations in the weather could be developed, thanks to recent discoveries about the survival mechanisms of plants. Scientists at the University of Edinburgh studying how tiny algae renew old or damaged cell proteins say their findings could be useful in developing crops suited to climates in which weather changes quickly. More »

Trees are dying in the Sahel, a region in Africa south of the Sahara Desert, and human-caused climate change is to blame, according to a new study led by a scientist at the University of California, Berkeley. More »

Sergio Abranches

COP17 in Durban is braced to start dealing with a deadlocked agenda. Negotiators will have to find a middle ground to prevent the talks to collapse and wreck the United Nation’s architecture for climate change policy and politics. More »

Sérgio Abranches

A document from the State Council released today spells out Beijing’s views on domestic climate change policies and the Chinese government’s expectations and demands regarding COP17’s negotiations. More »