The Soyuz TMA-17 spacecraft approaches the International Space Station, carrying Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kotov, Soyuz commander and Expedition 22 flight engineer; along with NASA astronaut T.J. Creamer and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Soichi Noguchi, both flight engineers.

German Environment Minister Norbert Roettgen has lashed out at the US and China, accusing them of thwarting a binding climate agreement at the recently concluded UN summit in Copenhagen.  

German Environment Minister Norbert Roettgen told the news magazine Der Spiegel that the Chinese were not concerned about climate protection but instead about hindering the process.

He also said that in the United States, the political elite had not succeeded in winning support for climate protection.

The comments come amid the backdrop of criticism levelled by the German government over the attitude of countries like the US and China following the disappointing outcome at the United Nations Climate Summit in Copenhagen earlier this month.

THE most effective way to stop climate change is to stop eating meat and dairy, says a report by the British Sustainable Development Commission on Climate Change. That is also what the European Parliament concluded from a recent hearing on Climate Change and Food Policy: Less Meat, Less Heat.

Less cows on factory farms means less methane emission. Less methane emission means helping reduce global warming since methane is known to be a lot more effective in trapping heat in the atmosphere.

The European Parliament hearing had Sir Paul McCartney on the panel agreeing that reducing meat consumption is the easiest way to cut greenhouse gas emissions, in particular methane and nitrous oxide.

Al Gore, former US vice president and climate change campaigner, points out the same problems that eating meat brings to the planet. He recommends going vegetarian to save the planet. "I'm not a vegetarian, but I have cut back sharply on the meat that I eat," he says.

Hurricane Lothar swept across western and central Europe in 1999 with devastating results, but ten years on a Swiss forester says it also had positive effects.

Forester Jakob Zaugg told swissinfo.ch he still has vivid memories of the storm that took its toll of countless woods in Switzerland.

"Trees flew with their roots like arrows 80 metres into the air and then fell to the ground. I'd never seen anything like that before."

Zaugg, who has been self-employed in the special woods business since 2001, was working after the hurricane as a fireman involved in clearing-up operations.

One particular picture sticks in the mind of the 53-year-old father of three children: a roof tile lying on the pillow of an empty cradle in a room open to the heavens.

The storms caused 14 deaths in Switzerland and another 15 people died in clearing-up operations. "It's a wonder that there weren't any more fatalities," he said.

Last weekend's minimalist Copenhagen global climate accord provides a great opportunity. The old deceitful, ineffectual approach is severely wounded and must die. Now there is a chance for the world to get on to an honest, effective path to an agreement.

The centrepiece of the old approach was a "cap-and-trade" scheme, festooned with offsets and bribes - bribes that purportedly, but hardly, reduced carbon emissions. It was analogous to the indulgences scheme of the Middle Ages, whereby sinners paid the Church for forgiveness.

In today's indulgences the sinners, developed countries, buy off developing countries by paying for "offsets" to their own emissions and providing reparation money for adaptation to climate change. But such hush money won't work. Yes, some developing country leaders salivated over the proffered $100 billion per year. But by buying in, they would cheat their children and ours. Besides, even the $100 billion hush money is fugacious. The US, based on its proportion of the fossil fuel carbon in the air today, would owe $27 billion per year. Chance of Congress providing that: dead zero. Maybe the UK will cough up its $6 billion per year and Germany its $7 billion per year. But who will collect Russia's $7 billion per year?

Fee-and-dividend, in contrast, is a non-tax - on average it is revenue-neutral. The public will probably accept a rise in the carbon fee rate, because their monthly dividend will increase correspondingly. As fee-and-dividend causes fossil fuel energy prices to rise, a series of points will be reached at which various carbon-free energies and carbon-saving technologies are cheaper than fossil fuels plus the fee. The market place will choose the best technology. As time goes on, fossil fuel use will collapse, coal will be left in the ground, and we will have arrived at a clean energy future. A rising carbon fee is essential for a climate solution. But how to achieve a fair international framework?

The critical requirement is that the United States and China agree to apply across-the-board carbon fees, at a relative rate to be negotiated. Why would China agree to a carbon fee? China does not want to be saddled with the problems that attend fossil fuel addiction such as those that plague the United States. Besides, China would be hit extraordinarily hard by climate change. A uniform rising carbon fee is the most economically efficient way for China to limit its fossil fuel dependence.

Denominate the carbon fee in energy, and we'll have the basis for a workable solution.

"Any economic unit can emit money. The serious problem is to get it accepted" Hyman Minsky