As the world prepares for talks on a post-Kyoto plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions, it's not exactly encouraging to hear that rich countries pumped out 18.2 billion tonnes in 2005 – up from 18.1 billion in 2004 and just below a record 18.7 billion in 1990.
And for exponents of globalisation, there's some bad news too: A report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies warns that climate change could scotch globalisation by 2040. "Some of the consequences could essentially involve the end of globalisation as we have known it … as different parts of the Earth contract upon themselves in order to try to conserve what they need to survive," says Leon Fuerth of George Washington University, one of the report's authors. It predicts massive food and water shortages, devastating disasters and disease outbreaks – even if the United States does cave into pressure to cap its emissions. And peacebuilding group International Alert has published a new list of 46 countries it classifies as at risk of violent conflict and a further 56 that face a high risk of instability as a result of climate change.
