Climate Countdown

With the Copenhagen climate summit ready to kick-off this week, the World Bank has released an interesting report stating that developing economies including The Philippines will bear about 80 percent of the potential cost of climate change.

The Australian government's failure this week to get an emissions trading scheme bill passed deflated some of the optimism last week following Barack Obama's pledge to announce specific targets on emissions.

But for anyone in any doubt about the imminence of the challenges ahead, The Diplomat contributor Ben Bohane reports from the Carteret islands group in Papua New?Guinea, where global warming and rising seas have created the first climate refugees. His piece will be up next week -- should make for interesting reading.