Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions

Busisiwe Ndlela was radiant when I met her yesterday. Just this month, and with money she earned selling tiny trees, she has bought a new cupboard and an electric stove and she is proud as can be.

Driven by subsidies for small cars and an ever increasing middle class, the Chinese year of the tiger saw a ferocious increase in the car industry — a whopping 18.1 million vehicles (including 13.8 million cars) were sold in China in 2010, up by a third from the previous year. But will new efforts by Beijing combat both the booming economy and the grid-locked streets? And is this another example of China setting a new course for a greener future?

Developing countries might want to prepare for a future where powerful governments compete for access to dwindling fossil-fuel supplies by taking a realistic look at what's already available.

The ‘slump as opportunity’ concept is alive and well in UK government. Ed Miliband, the country’s Energy and Climate Change Minister, said today that recession will not deflect government efforts to cut carbon emissions and move to a low-carbon economy.