Also by christian

If we can't trade aviation emissions away, and there's no technology fix, will domestic flights have to face the chop?

Big news on aviation emissions, as the Committee on Climate Change - the government's own independent scientific emissions watchdog - have said that the UK's aviation emissions should be 'capped'.

This would mean that they must remain at or below 2005 levels. When the government announced the third runway at Heathrow, they did say that they would do something similar, but the big caveat was that this cap would be flexible, in that it would be possible for the aviation industry to buy carbon credits through the European emissions trading scheme, to balance growing emissions.

"Hacking the only planet we've got rather than simply changing the way we live shows a lack of judgment, to put it mildly." - Alex Steffen of Worldchanging

When the Royal Society do a report on something, they do it properly. Their latest, 'Geoengineering the climate: Science Governance and Uncertainty' - is the product of a year's worth of work by some of the most prestigious scientists in the world.

And we should be grateful that they took the time, because based on a cursory glance, it looks like they've produced a thoughtful and detailed summary of proposals for so-called 'geoengineering' - or trying to deliberately manipulate the planet's climate.

The American Petroleum Institute is the kind of friendly industry body that lobbies for 'big oil', and has no trouble inspiring grassroots action. The trouble is, from their point of view, it's the wrong kind.

For the oil companies, it must be incredibly tedious to have masses of engaged citizens fired up about the way you're trashing the planet - camping out on your lawn, organising rallies, chaining themselves to your office, asking pointed questions to politicians. How irritating that there are people who think you're so wrong they'll actually get out onto the streets and protest about it! It sucks to be on the wrong side of history.

The Esperanza visits Papua New Guinea

There's a small but growing community of people who are trying bring some clarity to the debate about forest protection in the run-up to Copenhagen - specifically the REDD (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation) process.

Natasha Loder, who writes for the Economist, is covering the intricacies of the carbon trading markets in Papua New Guinea on her blog. Her latest post is a look at the tangled web of project-based carbon offsetting. A 'project based' approach for REDD would allow bits of forest to be 'bought up' by organisations, who'd pay to protect the forest in return for securing rights to the future carbon credits from it.