A recent report on the humdrum subject of plans to build new coal-burning plants to generate electricity helps to explain why Asia — led by China and India — is now at the epicenter of concern about global warming and climate change.
As policymakers from nearly all of the world's countries meet in Doha, Qatar, for annual United Nations climate negotiations from this week to Dec. 7, researchers have been issuing fresh calls on the need for action to reduce the relentless rise in emissions of greenhouse gases from human activity that are heating the world.
They do so as the Kyoto Protocol, the existing plan for curbing these emissions, is due to expire at the end of 2012.