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UN official: Rich countries pay poor to cut CO2 By Paul Eccleston Last Updated: 1:01pm BST 22/08/2007 A top UN official has triggered a row by claiming rich countries should be allowed to buy their way out of cutting carbon emissions. Two men fish in a lake next to a copper-smelting plant in Chelyabinsk, Russia Yvo de Boer, head of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) said developing countries could be paid to make the cuts. But environmental groups condemned the remarks and said the consequences of climate change could only be solved by all countries - both...

Meet Me in Milan By Ronald Bailey Some 4000 delegates from 188 countries have been convened since December 1 in Milan at the ninth Conference of the Parties (COP9) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The delegates will be joined later this week by at least 74 environment ministers from around the world. The delegates and environmental activists had hoped that the COP9 would be the occasion for announcing that the Kyoto Protocol to the UNFCCC had at long last come into force. The Kyoto Protocol has already been ratified by 100 or so countries but...