News stories by Matthew Berger, page 5

As what was supposed to be a breakthrough year for action on climate change comes to a close, one indicator of the disappointment surrounding an anti-climactic outcome in Copenhagen and stalled U.S. Senate legislation can be seen on the European Climate Exchange.

As countries failed to reach a substantive climate change pact at Copenhagen last week, action at the subnational level has emerged as one of the likeliest paths toward significant climate action.

As the war on drugs moves closer to home and a new administration presents new ideas, policymakers in Washington are taking notice of 30 years' worth of ineffectual drug policy and beginning to think about different ways of addressing the northward flow of narcotics.

Twelve years after the climate change meetings in Kyoto, a much changed U.S. will show up at the Copenhagen conference this week, and, following recent developments in Washington, their ability to offer and agree to international climate actions has likely never been higher.

As U.S. special envoy to Sudan Scott Gration defended the Barack Obama administration's new policy toward the war-torn country on Capitol Hill Thursday, NGOs and a U.N. official reacted with disappointment and impatience.

As both Washington and the international community come gradually closer to taking substantive action on climate change at a high-level conference in Copenhagen, a side effect of this progress has been a parallel increase in the intensity of campaigns opposing such action — which may be a factor in the slight dip in the U.S. public's concern about climate change.

On a sunny Sunday afternoon in Washington, DC's Mount Pleasant neighbourhood, about 50 protestors lined up outside a polling station where voting was taking place to help select the next leader of a country almost 3,000 kilometres away.

After weeks of speculation, the White House announced Wednesday that President Barack Obama will stop by the climate talks to be held in Copenhagen next month en route to Oslo, where he will receive his Nobel Peace Prize Dec. 10.

As climate scientists defend their work from sceptics in the aftermath of researchers' emails being stolen over the weekend, a new report hopes to provide an update on science's latest climate-related findings.

A balanced approach of demand- and supply-side measures are needed to meet a growing 'water gap' in which global water demand will be 40 percent more than supply by 2030, says a new report from the 2030 Water Resources Group.