Lines drawn on emissions targets
The Government this week set the target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 10 - 20 per cent of 1990 levels by 2020.
Here's how scientists surveyed by the Science Media Centre responded.
Meanwhile, proposed legislation for a carbon trading scheme was knocked down in the Australian Senate. Reaction from Australian scientists was similarly mixed, a symbol perhaps of how vexing the issue of emissions reduction continues to be.
The Telegraph estimates the potential impact of that carbon defeat on the all-important COP15 discussions in Copenhagen in December.
This week's climate discussions in Bonn appear to have been dominated by the complaints of India and China, who accuse rich, develeoped nations of pressuring them into aggressive and in their view inequitable emissions
reduction cuts.
Back in New Zealand, the Prime Minister's Chief Science Advisor, Professor Sir Peter Gluckman now has a presence in cyberspace where he has posted an interesting thought piece on climate change.
Sir Peter writes: "The whole matter is compounded by the reality that science cannot provide absolutely precise predictions about a
future scenario for which there are no precedents. Action on climate change therefore depends on a set of political
decisions that in turn must be made on the current assessment of the science and on the basis of scientific assessment
of probability and risk."
ENDS