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Part of it is also just human psychology. We live in the present, not the future, so why don’t I just take that dollar now, thank you. As J. Wellington Wimpy -- yup, Popeye's friend -- expresses the problem, "I'd gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today." When he’s staring at a lightly charred, grease-oozing meat patty wedged into a bun, Tuesday sounds as agreeable as anything because it’s practically synonymous with “never.”

The problem with the live-now-pay-later approach is that there are many things dollars can't buy when they're gone, such as Arctic ice caps, biodiversity, pre-industrial ocean chemistry or historic sea levels. Now, don’t get me wrong. Human communities are adaptable. That’s how we walked out of Africa and colonized the world. But there’s an important disconnect here that warrants attention, too. People try to adapt once an event has occurred; beginning to adapt before events occur, even predictable events, is not always our strong suit.

I bet the policy professionals and scientists who ponder climate change adaptation spend little if any time with investors and traders whose livelihoods rise or fall on the spread between company estimates and earnings. There’s a yawning chasm between how much tolerance companies and investors have for blips in performance, which is to say not much, and the large-scale threats to life and property in years and decades ahead, which as far as anybody knows could be considerable. I’d gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.

The world has warmed about 0.8 degrees Celsius since 1900. To the extent that scientists can characterize a world 2 degrees C hotter, 3 degrees C hotter or 4 degrees C hotter, it's not one that's likely to have water, ice, coasts and soils in places we like them. "There is now little to no chance of maintaining the rise in global mean surface temperature at below 2 degrees C, despite repeated high-level statements to the contrary," Kevin Anderson, of the University of Manchester, and Alice Bows, of the University of East Anglia, wrote in a 2011 issue of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society: A devoted to research about extreme climate change. They also note that scientists think climate impacts expected from a 2 degree C rise will be worse than they thought just a few years ago. International policymakers have generally accepted two degrees as a rough estimate of the upper bounds of acceptable climate change: It might not be.

Obama’s comments drew much attention yesterday, and if (if) the White House and legislators are able to agree on a climate policy, it would change the conversation nationally and globally. A tax on carbon pollution is receiving renewed attention, having been dismissed by climate policy advocates as too weak in 2009-2010 when Democrats tried and failed to move a cap-and-trade bill through the Senate.

U.S. federal policy is important, but the attention it receives often obscures productive experiments going on in California, which held its first auction of carbon pollution permits yesterday; in the European Union, where the bloc's seven-year-old emissions trading system is undergoing a mid-course correction; in South Korea, which will test a carbon-trading system next year; in Australia, Mexico, Canada, China and elsewhere. Policy experiments such as these are intriguing to watch unfold, particularly where they might achieve lasting emissions reductions. Also, it's worth pointing out the U.S. has seen dramatic increases in solar power efficiency and decreases in coal use despite the absence of a national carbon policy.

Federal officials can monitor these initiatives as they progress. As they do, they might also mind the gap between climate scenarios projected from our business-as-usual energy economy and from safer pathways. It would be a shame to look back and conclude that the United States was too J. Wellington Wimpy when it turns out to have mattered most. Much more at http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-11-15/blame-wimpy-for-slow-u-s-resp
onse-to-climate-change.html

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Protests against pollution have multiplied in China as people become better informed and more concerned about the heavy ecological cost of economic development. Even state media now stresses the environment is a priority for China. Young people use micro-blogging to pass on the word. "People understand that the fight against pollution is a personal right, for there are very few places in the world where industrialisation has had such a massive and direct impact on such a large number of people," said environmental activist Ma Jun.

Earlier this summer there were student-led protests against a copper alloy plant in Shifang, central Sichuan province. The local authorities quickly scrapped the project. In August 2011 a similar protest broke out in the industrial port of Dalian in the north-east, which mobilised 12,000 people. The authorities gave way there too.

In Qidong, locals were protesting against plans by a Japanese-owned paper mill to build a wastewater pipeline close to a small port. "Many people earn a living from fishing here. That project jeopardised their livelihoods," said Li. She had learned about it on an internet forum and felt she had to do something. "Protecting the environment is our generation's responsibility, we have a better understanding about these issues."

The government is concerned by these demonstrations. An editorial in the People's Daily, the communist party organ, stated that "the public is rapidly becoming aware of environmental issues and its rights"....should state coercion fail, the government will immediately make some concessions to prevent the movement from escalating. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/aug/21/environment-activist
s-china-pollution-protest

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In response to electricity crisis caused by the Great East Japan Earthquake and nuclear power plant accident in Fukushima, the government, power companies and private companies have been trying to find out new framework of energy security, which is not highly depending on single energy source i.e. nuclear power. Consumers' concerns over energy source and environment are also increasing and one solution is the development of more renewable energy resource and realize the best energy mix.

The Japanese government is currently formulating a new energy policy, in which presumably the portion of nuclear energy will be smaller while increasing focus on new and renewable energy. The Basic Energy Plan, which is currently under compilation at the initiative of the government, is supposed to be manifested in August 2012. This plan shall be closely watched, together with the movement of Nuclear Policy Outline, in order to assess mid-long term directional movement of Japanese energy development. http://www.finnode.fi/en/usa/projects/finnode_japan_2012_-_paradigm_sh
ift_in_energy_environment_after_3.11.371.xhtml

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Originally started as a pilot project in 2009, the Environmental Sustainability Schools Programme, now known as the Environmental Sustainability Project (ESP) is Youth @ SAIIA's newest youth outreach project that combines our longstanding commitment to public education on matters of international affairs with our desire to raise awareness of the current environmental sustainability debate among young South Africans.

South Africa will host the all-important 17th United Nations Conference of Parties (COP 17) on Climate Change in Durban later this year. Youth @ SAIIA has themed this year's Environmental Sustainability Project "Road to COP 17. Learners from Gauteng, Kwa-Zulu Natal and the Western Cape will participate in a model youth climate change negotiation at COP-17. The learners will have a chance to share their solutions for tackling the environmentally linked challenges of today. http://www.saiia.org.za/youth-programmes/environmental-sustainability-
project.html

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However, not everything goes badly in Russia. Positive developments are already taking place even though they are only a beginning. The Russian state has laid some important foundations despite the corruption, poorly conceived instruments and a complicated implementation. With both the climate doctrine and the energy law from 2009, the negative effects of the climate change are no longer ignored. Additionally, the energy law is intended to end the waste of energy; the goal is to waste 40 percent less energy until 2020. The first regulations have been formulated, but their implementation remains to be seen.

Russia's accession to the WTO promises some support. The Russian market will open slowly in the coming seven years until 2019, but the pressure is already increasing. The economy needs to modernize and end inefficiencies, especially in the area of power consumption, in order to be competitive. Modernization therefore becomes a question of economic survival. But the pressure increases also from society. Increasingly, environmental movements like NGOs are founded in Russia. Signs exist for a positive ecological change, but require further support. http://www.objectivemind.org/en/environment/russia/russias-environment
al-problems/

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respondents in Canada are more likely to call for environmental protection at the risk of hampering economic growth

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