[SANTIAGO] The Chilean parliament has unanimously approved a law to preserve the country’s forests, promote their sustainable use and foster related scientific research.

The Native Forest Law has been in negotiation for 15 years — the longest any law has taken to pass in Chile — and members of the scientific community, environmental organisations and government authorities have expressed great satisfaction with its approval this month (19 December).

“This law introduces an ecosystemic vision that does not consider the forest just as a wood source, but as a benefit for the community, since it sets funds for forest recovery and for its non-lumber management,” says Antonio Lara, dean of the forestry science faculty at the Austral University in Valdivia, Chile, and involved in the negotiations since 1992.

The year 2007 is on pace to become one of the 10 warmest years for the contiguous U.S., since national records began in 1895, according to preliminary data from NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. The year was marked by exceptional drought in the U.S. Southeast and the West, which helped fuel another extremely active wildfire season. The year also brought outbreaks of cold air, and killer heat waves and floods. Meanwhile, the global surface temperature for 2007 is expected to be fifth warmest since records began in 1880. Preliminary data will be updated in early January to reflect the final three weeks of December and is not considered final until a full analysis is complete next spring.

A last-minute decision to put Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) on the roadmap for future climate change talks

The European Commission sparked controversy last week with plans to fine automakers that miss proposed cuts in carbon emissions

Most people attending the Climate Change Conference in Bali agree: avoided deforestation, often referred to as REDD (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation), will play a role in whatever regime replaces the Kyoto Protocol

Japan urged China to do more to fight global warming and pledged to help the country reduce runaway pollution during high-level talks in the Chinese capital on Friday.

Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda of Japan made energy and environmental issues the centerpiece of his four-day visit to China, hoping to build on a recent improvement in relations between Asia’s two leading powers.

The countries have sticky disputes over territory, energy resources, wartime history and military spending. Mr. Fukuda’s visit, his first as prime minister, promised no major breakthroughs.

The prospects for rehabilitation after the worst oil spill in the history of the Republic of Korea (ROK) are good, thanks to quick and effective action by the Korean authorities, according to a joint United Nations-European Commission Assessment Team.

Although emergency assistance is not required for clean-up operations after the oil tanker Hebei Spirit collided with a barge 100 kilometres south of Seoul, the capital, on 7 December, releasing 10,500 metric tons of crude oil into the sea, the team recommended continued monitoring and analysis to determine the impact on the environment, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said today.

The team also concluded that shoreline assessment training should be carried out to assist with longer-term clean-up options and to build national response capacity. Commending the speedy and effective reaction of the authorities, who used methods consistent with international oil pollution response practices, the team noted that follow-up activities began almost immediately after it completed its mission.

When Democrats took over Congress this year, they vowed loudly and often that big oil companies’ days of tax breaks and subsidies were numbered.

And their timing in the early going seemed perfect. Last Feb. 1, Exxon Mobil Corp. posted a record 2006 profit of $39.5 billion — slapping an exclamation point on House approval of a measure two weeks earlier that would boost industry taxes to pay for renewable energy programs.

But that measure never became law, and now the industry has emerged with nary a scratch from several Democratic efforts to revise oil-friendly tax policies and repeal royalty incentives. The most recent failure came this month when Democrats — facing GOP-led filibusters and a veto threat — jettisoned oil provisions from a big year-end energy bill.

For a critter scarcely the size of a fingernail, the zebra mussel is capable of a major amount of mischief.

When it comes to protecting the Great Lakes from exotic species imported by saltwater ships, there’s bad news, and there’s worse news.