Environmental groups in Azerbaijan say the government is not doing enough to tackle the illegal over-fishing of caviar stocks in the Caspian Sea.

The Social Ecologist Agency say local caviar-bearing beluga sturgeon are being decimated by illegal fishing.

The group is launching an intensive national education programme and plans to repopulate the Caspian by releasing a million baby sturgeon into the sea.

In Azerbaijan, the price of beluga caviar starts at $1,000 per kilogram.

For centuries, black caviar has been extracted from sturgeon, which live primarily in the Caspian Sea. Only for the last decade or so has the fish been listed as an endangered species.

LONDON -- Representatives of the world's biggest carbon polluters began two days of informal talks in London on Sunday to map out common ground 50 days before a key UN climate conference in Copenhagen.

The 17 powers that make up the so-called Major Economies Forum (MEF), along with developing nations and UN representatives, will try to iron out some of their differences before the crunch summit in December.

"We represent about 90 percent of global emissions, so if we can get a way forward and narrow some of the differences between the... countries that represent the lion's share of the problem, then it might make those UN talks easier," British Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband told the BBC.

He said the Copenhagen talks, when nations will try to agree a new global climate treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol which expires in 2012, were unlikely to succeed if left to the summit itself.

"The truth is that if this is left to the negotiators in the formal negotiations, I think we'll fail," he said.

The MEF was launched by US President Barack Obama earlier this year on the back of an initiative by his predecessor, George W. Bush, to speed up the search for common ground among the most polluting world economies.

Nearly 80 people were arrested and three police officers left needing hospital treatment during a huge climate change protest at a power station.

More than 1,000 demonstrators converged on the giant coal-powered Ratcliffe-on-Soar site in Nottinghamshire yesterday, with clashes breaking out between police and protesters as they tried to tear up perimeter fencing.

One policeman was airlifted to hospital with head injuries but later released, and two other officers needed hospital treatment for minor injuries, Nottinghamshire Police said.

Police said nearly 80 people were arrested during the day on suspicion of committing offences including aggravated trespass and criminal damage.

"There are still a large number of protesters at the power station and we will continue to monitor the situation throughout the night," a spokesman said,.

Demonstrators, under the banner the Great Climate Swoop, included supporters of three pressure groups - the Camp for Climate Action, Plane Stupid and Climate Rush.

Real, gutsy solar power is as rare as hen's teeth in this country. By the real deal I mean photovoltaic (PV) systems that convert sunlight into electricity as opposed to rather prosaic solar thermal systems that heat water. Last year just 6MW of solar PV was installed in this country. Compare and contrast the situation in Germany, where more than 1,500MW was installed last year and one in 10 buildings has a solar power system.

This is ludicrous because solar PV could provide 30-40% of the UK's total electricity needs by 2050, reducing CO2 emissions by 15% a year. An average domestic system (a fairly modest 1.8kWp PV system) can provide at least 25% of a household's energy. The sticking point has been the expense.

Luckily there are sunnier days ahead. We've been waiting years for a Feed-in Tariff scheme (rebranded as the Clean Energy Cash Back Scheme), and now it is expected to arrive in April 2010. This will guarantee domestic PV installations 36.5 pence per kw hour of electricity they feed back into the grid, probably for around 25 years.

A new type of wasp has been discovered living quietly in Sevenoaks, Kent, and, rather than being a foreign invader, it has been identified as a reclusive British native.

The wasp does not sting, but is a parasite which lays its eggs in the live bodies of whitefly that can plague maple trees. The eggs hatch inside the whitefly and the larvae eat the host insect from within until they are ready to pupate and emerge as adult wasps.

"It's a bit of a John Hurt Alien scenario," said Dr Andrew Polaszek, of the Natural History Museum in London, who discovered the species. "But it's an effective form of pest control."

Gordon Brown is not known for his cheery disposition, but even he might crack a smile at the sight of a mother pedalling three grinning children to school by cargo-bike in Copenhagen. The Prime Minister will be visiting the Danish capital - where such scenes of urban pragmatism are normal - during the UN Climate Change Conference, which takes place from 7-18 December.

If he were to duck out of the delegates' scheduled "Energy Tour" of wind turbines and refuse incinerators, his perfect day might start at Det Økologiske Inspirationhus (the house of ecological inspiration) in Frederiksberg, continue with an organic lunch at Bio Mio, and conclude over a CO2-neutral beer at Nørrebro Bryghus; were he to have arrived in summer, he might have been tempted to leave his problems behind and join the locals cooling down after work with a swim at the Havnebadet and Copencabana city-centre harbour baths. But even a couple of hours outside the conference hall will reveal why Copenhagen is regarded as one of the most liveable, people-friendly cities in the world.

The details are of course shocking, but the broad thrust of our story today on the government's secret plans to subsidise nuclear power is also sadly unsurprising. The history of atomic power has always been one of huge costs overruns, massive government bailouts and the running problem of what to do with the toxic waste - in other words, it is the history of taxpayers handing over cash to giant nuclear companies. The atomic lobby sometimes tries to pass off this woeful track record as ancient history, but it is not - just ask the Finns. A nuclear reactor was meant to open on the Finnish island of Olkiluoto this summer, but - after four years of building, countless defects and at least a €2bn rise in the original costs - the thing will not be working until 2012 at the earliest. Remind us, what is the Finnish for "trebles all round"?

The trees, which were already under duress, are being killed by insects that thrive as the climate changes. Scientists call it Sudden Aspen Decline.

Aspens are a big fall tourist draw, but this year there's less color. The trees had already been under duress before what foresters term Sudden Aspen Decline. (RJ Sangosti / The Denver Post)

Reporting from Paonia, Colo. - From the hillsides of extinct volcanoes in Arizona to the jagged peaks of Idaho, aspen trees are falling by the tens of thousands, the latest example of how climate change is dramatically altering the American West.

Starting seven years ago, foresters noticed massive aspen die-offs caused by parasitical insects, one of them so rare it is hardly even written about in scientific literature. But with warming temperatures and the effects of a brutal drought still lingering, the parasites are flourishing at the expense of the tree, beloved for its slender branches and heart-shaped leaves that turn a brilliant yellow in autumn.

What foresters have termed Sudden Aspen Decline affects more than just aesthetics. Aspen trees provide a rich habitat for birds, elk, deer and other animals. The grasses that sprout under them -- up to 2,000 pounds per acre -- hold water that is needed by metropolitan areas. The trees do not burn easily and create natural firebreaks in forests already ravaged by the pine bark beetle -- another parasite that is thriving because of global warming.

"It's just rolling through the forests," Wayne Shepperd, an aspen specialist at Colorado State University, said of SAD.

Noting the number of other changes to Western vegetation due to warmer, drier temperatures, he added: "Everything's happening all at once. We're living in interesting times here."

GREEN HORIZONS An increasing amount of electricity is being generated by solar panels in California and wind turbines in Texas.

Texas cares little for environmental niceties. Its governor, Rick Perry, bashes the Environmental Protection Agency at every opportunity, and recently branded the climate bill that passed the House of Representatives a "legislative monstrosity."

Yet the oil-and-gas state has nonetheless emerged as the nation's top producer of a commodity prized by environmentalists: wind power. Eager developers are covering its desolate western mesas with giant turbines. The world's largest wind farm began operations in Texas this month, and the state now has close to three times as much wind capacity as Iowa, the second-ranked state.

This achievement puts Mr. Perry's state in odd company. The race for clean-energy leadership is on -- and big red Texas is going head-to-head with the gung-ho greens of California. That state has thrown itself into solar power and now leads the nation by a huge margin; it has also aggressively pursued energy efficiency.
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Despite their vast differences, Texas and California do share one approach: each has a renewable electricity mandate, requiring that a certain amount of their electricity come from renewable sources by a given year. This policy, clunkily called a "renewable portfolio standard," is in place in about half the states. Congress is considering one for the nation too: In June, the House passed a bill that would require 20 percent of utilities' electricity by 2020 to come from a combination of renewable sources and efficiency improvements. The Senate is considering an energy bill that includes a somewhat weaker requirement (along with a separate, hotly debated climate bill).

A diehard activist for some, a pioneer for others, Joel Salatin is fighting against America's genetically-modified foods and for local subsistence farming. Leading his crusade from the heart of the Shenandoah Valley in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, this anti-globalization messenger who dubs himself a "Christian Libertarian environmentalist capitalist lunatic farmer" has become the face of healthy eating and agriculture.
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"Nobody trusts the industrial food system to give them good food," said Salatin, surrounded by the many cows, pigs, turkeys, rabbits and chickens he raises in methods that remain unconventional in the highly-industrialized US agricultural sector. "The distrust is very real."

An iconoclast who has authored several books with titles like "Everything I Want to Do is Illegal," Salatin makes regular media appearances and now spends a third of his time at conferences. But farming is still a family affair built over three generations on the rocky terrain of his "Polyface Farm". Chickens and turkeys run free here, transported in a chicken coop built on wheels to a different pasture every three days. The 1,000 cows and 700 pigs raised for meat each year change pastures every week.

Salatin, 53, hails his "healing farming" method, where each animal plays an environmental role. "The cows shorten the grass and the chicken eat the fly larvae and sanitize the pastures. This is a symbiotic relation," he explained. This natural approach to farming is just as profitable as industrial farming, Salatin insists, because he saves where big chicken and beef producers are forced to invest in structures, drugs and labor.