At least the debate is not whether climate change is actually happening. Now we’re figuring where to spend the money to fight it.

The most recent report from the world’s top climate scientists is not overflowing with optimism: drought, disease, famine, smog-related deaths. “This is the story. This is the whole play. This is how it’s going to affect people. The science is one thing. This is how it affects me, you and the person next door,” says University of Victoria climate scientist Andrew Weaver.

Spiked, an online magazine for the truly right wing, is fretting that children are losing sleep over the threat of global warming. Others may think that worrying about an impending catastrophe is a perfectly natural reaction.

We keep hearing that the environment is not a partisan issue. Now the Liberals and Greens are actually cooperating, proving that it is possible that something good can come out of the crisis of global warming.

Why wait until 2012? If the Kyoto countries are serious about fighting global warming (as they say they are, and if they already know that much deeper cuts will be required this time around (as they do), then we might as well get started. And if there is an election in the US before then, so much the better.

The UK has passed binding legislation to curb CO2 emissions. The government will need to “count the carbon, just as they count the pennies,” says Treasury chief Gordon Brown. The bill called for emissions to be reduced by 60 percent by 2050, and by as much as 32 percent by 2020. Targets were based on 1990 levels. The Green Party said emissions should be reduced by 90 percent by 2050.

COPENHAGEN – Completion of European deals to trade carbon credits under the Kyoto Protocol will have to wait several more months as countries do not yet have UN approval to trade, a European Commission official said on Wednesday.