My Dear Alfred,

As I write this, the rain is lashing down and it's late. Last time I wrote to you about the issue I work on, climate change, I was far away in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, at the UN Sustainable Development Summit. One year on, I...

Despite the seeming lack of progress at the latest UN climate negotiations in Doha, with many saying the two-week session again failed to deliver any substantive action towards a safer, more climate controlled world, we should not forget that something new and extraordinary took place this year within the walls...

Today it's raining outside, for the first time since I am here in Rio de Janeiro. The heat has broken but the fog remains. Helicopters are circling above us at the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) and security is very tight with police and military everywhere as the world's...

Our planet is in a precarious state. The trajectory towards sustainability is even further off track than 20 years ago, when the first UN Conference on Sustainable Development took place in Rio de Janeiro. We knew the challenges and the solutions then, and we know them today. But, as world...

People hate to think what might happen if we fail to stop the worse effects of climate change. Well, as one senior climate scientist said to me recently: "Impacts are happening already and currently we are going to shoot well past two degrees of global warming. It's time to batten...