Ecological debt and global warming . Andrew Sims argues that developed countries have run up an ecological debt by over-using the global economy. Less developed countries may well seek compensation through international courts ? or, perhaps, through reverse debt swaps, in which environmental debts are exchanged for rich countries' equity. The way forward may be through the trading schemes envisaged in the Contraction & Convergence plans of the Global Commons Institute.

By New Economics Foundation, UK.

Climate Change Policy Resource.

Proliferation-Resistant Nuclear Power. The recent renewed interest in nuclear power, and probably its principal ticket to a robust place in the world's energy future, is its potential contribution to coping with the problem of global warming. To make such a contribution, nuclear power would have to expand ten-fold at least over the next 100 years. Efforts are underway in the US and Europe to design reactor technologies and fuel cycles that are safer, more efficient in their generation of nuclear waste, and more proliferation-resistant than today's systems. If successful, this could have a significant impact upon the way governments view nuclear energy (notwithstanding real concerns about waste disposal and safety). Harold Feiveson in The Journal of the Federation of American Scientists describes developments which could, on paper at least, herald the development of nuclear fuel cycles which states and sub-state organisations find difficult to divert into military uses.

By Federation of American Scientists, US.

Climate Change Policy Resource.