In Kiboko, Kenya, a barbed wire fence separates a field of hybrid corn from the surrounding lands. Inside the fence, food safety regulators are learning to grow the crop with little water. In recent years, droughts have hit the region between June and September, reducing yields. But two new varieties of corn, also known as maize, are coming to sub-Saharan Africa. One of them is conventionally bred; the other, better-yielding variety is genetically modified. Both are drought-tolerant and the seeds are royalty-free. Together with other agricultural interventions, they have the potential to feed some of the 300 million people for whom the plant is a staple.

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Less than a year ago, cap and trade was the policy of choice for tackling climate change. Environmental groups and their foes in industry joined hands to embrace the approach, a market-driven system that sets a ceiling on global warming pollution while allowing companies to trade permits to meet it. President Obama praised it by name in his first budget, and the authors of the House climate and energy bill passed last June largely built their measure around it.

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California's economy will not be damaged by the state's 2006 climate change law, a state agency said in a report on Wednesday that counters the business community's arguments that the economically troubled state will lose more jobs and businesses. The analysis by the state Air Resources Board, the chief regulator of the law, forecast higher energy prices from new regulations and a cap-and-trade system for greenhouse gases, but said greater energy efficiency would keep costs manageable in the trend-setting environmental state. It concluded that the measure will yield modest job gains statewide, will have a negligible effect on the state's overall economy -- the eighth largest in the world -- and could benefit some sectors like alternative energy businesses.

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Canada's climate researchers are being muzzled, their funding slashed, research stations closed, findings ignored and advice on the critical issue of the century unsought by Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government, according to a 40-page report by a coalition of 60 non-governmental organisations. "This government says they take climate change seriously but they do nothing and try to hide the truth about climate change," said Graham Saul, representing Climate Action Network Canada (CAN), which produced the report "Troubling Evidence". "We want Canadians to understand what's going on with this government," Saul told IPS.

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Changes in the global climate are imposing additional stress on hundreds of species of migratory birds in the United States that are already threatened by other environmental factors, according to a new Interior Department report. The latest version of the department’s annual State of the Birds report shows that nearly a third of the nation’s 800 bird species are endangered, threatened or suffering from population decline. For the first time, the report adds climate change to other factors threatening bird populations, including destruction of habitat, hunting, pesticides, invasive species and loss of wetlands. The report said that oceanic and shore birds are among the most vulnerable to climate change because of rapidly changing marine ecosystems and rising sea levels. The conclusions are the result of a collaboration of federal and state wildlife agencies, universities and conservation groups.

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Talks on a new global climate change accord, bogged down for years in contested negotiations among nearly 200 countries, will increasingly move outside the sluggish U.N. framework and focus on a streamlined group of countries, special U.N. envoy Gro Harlem Brundtland said Tuesday. The disappointment of the Copenhagen summit last December, which failed to come up with binding rules on reducing pollution blamed for global warming, likely will bring a shift in the way countries view the cumbersome U.N. process and the need for more informal contact among key players, Brundtland said. Copenhagen concluded with a nonbinding three-page paper hammered out in an all-night private meeting among President Barack Obama and a handful of leaders, most importantly from China, India, Brazil and South Africa. It fell far short of the summit's original objective, a full-fledged and legally binding accord setting emission reduction targets for major countries. The Copenhagen experience "will serve as a base for discussions going on this year. It's not only going to be focused on the United Nations framework, but more on what these emerging economies and big economies are committing to," said Brundtland, speaking on the sidelines of a world conference on biofuels. "You will have more of a double track system" in addition to the U.N. framework, she said. Brundtland's comments reflect a growing admission that the U.N. process has proven dysfunctional. They add weight because of her 20-year involvement in climate issues and her current role as Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's special climate envoy.

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The Obama administration has always had a backup plan in case Congress failed to pass a broad climate change bill. The Environmental Protection Agency would use its Clean Air Act authority to regulate greenhouse gases. Regulation, or the threat of it, would goad Congress to act or provide a backstop if it did not. The House passed a bill last year seeking an economywide cap on emissions, but there has been no progress in the Senate. Now some senators seem determined to undercut the E.P.A.’s regulatory authority. These include not only Republicans who panic at any regulation, but also Democrats who say they worry about climate change but insist that the executive branch stand aside until Congress gets around to dealing with it. The most destructive idea is a “resolution of disapproval” concocted by Lisa Murkowski, a Republican from Alaska. It would reject the E.P.A.’s recent scientific finding that greenhouse gases are a danger to public health and welfare, effectively repudiating the agency’s authority — granted to it by the Supreme Court — to regulate these gases. As a practical matter, it would also stop last year’s widely applauded agreement to limit greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks.

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Public belief in climate science has seen a precipitous slide in the US, according to new polling that suggests fewer Americans are concerned about the threat posed by global warming. Nearly half of Americans – 48% – now believe the threat of global warming has been exaggerated, the highest level since polling began 13 years ago, the poll published today by Gallup said. It directly linked the decline in concern to the controversies about media coverage of stolen emails from the University of East Anglia climate research unit and a mistake about the Himalayan glaciers melting by 2035 in the UN's authoritative report on global warming. "These news reports may well have caused some Americans to re-evaluate the scientific consensus on global warming," Gallup said. Half of Americans now believe there is a scientific consensus on climate change. Some 46% believe scientists are unsure about global warming, or that it is not occurring. A UK poll last month showed adults who believe climate change is "definitely" a reality had dropped from 44% to 31% over the past year.

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Public belief in climate science has seen a precipitous slide in the US, according to new polling that suggests fewer Americans are concerned about the threat posed by global warming. Nearly half of Americans – 48% – now believe the threat of global warming has been exaggerated, the highest level since polling began 13 years ago, the poll published today by Gallup said. It directly linked the decline in concern to the controversies about media coverage of stolen emails from the University of East Anglia climate research unit and a mistake about the Himalayan glaciers melting by 2035 in the UN's authoritative report on global warming. "These news reports may well have caused some Americans to re-evaluate the scientific consensus on global warming," Gallup said. Half of Americans now believe there is a scientific consensus on climate change. Some 46% believe scientists are unsure about global warming, or that it is not occurring. A UK poll last month showed adults who believe climate change is "definitely" a reality had dropped from 44% to 31% over the past year.

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