Climate Change: latest news and comment

20.09.2004 The ozone layer of the Earth's atmosphere, assailed for decades by chemical products used in industry and agriculture, could begin to regenerate itself in the years ahead, predicts Rajendra Shende, director of the United Nations Environment Programme's Energy and Ozone Action Unit.

20.09.2004 The presidential campaign has briefly touched on issues of science, with President George W. Bush and Democratic challenger John Kerry answering questionnaires compiled by the journals "Nature" and "Science."

16.09.2004 Countries are today being urged to re-double efforts to assess the quantities of an ozone-damaging chemical being used to kill pests on shipments of rice, maize, nuts and other big commodity export crops.

16.09.2004 NAIROBI, Kenya — Iraqi scientists will assess pollution ranging from oil spills to scrap metal from destroyed military vehicles in an effort to tackle environmental damage in the war-ravaged country, the United Nations said this week.

With violence gripping Iraq, environmentalists are struggling to draw attention to damage caused during last year's U.S.-led invasion, the 1991 Gulf War, and waste discharged by industry struggling with years of sanctions.

10.09.2004 MOSCOW — Russia has not decided if it will support the Kyoto Protocol, the landmark environmental treaty it can sink or save, and the government has asked to delay making an official report to President Vladimir Putin until December.

10.09.2004 Climate change will soon make the Arctic regions of the world nearly unrecognisable, dramatically disrupting traditional Inuit and other northern native peoples' way of life, according to a new report that has yet to be publicly released.

06.09.2004 Scientists and humanities researchers in China have launched a new coordinating body intended to increase Chinese involvement in international discussions on the impact of global climate change.

06.09.2004 Thailand's energy-conservation scheme, due to start in September amid rising oil prices, will run right into this country's love affair with cars.

03.09.2004 Jimmy Carter put solar heating panels on the White House during his first year in office to promote energy conservation. Ronald Reagan took them off and ushered in the era of market deregulation shortly after he was elected. How are the current presidential candidates responding to renewable energy?

01.09.2004 The area burned by wildfires in 11 US states could double by the end of the century if summer climate warms by slightly more than a degree and a half, say researchers with the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service and Pacific Northwest Climate Impacts Group at the University of Washington.