This week, the World Meteorological Organization is assembling over 2500 experts from 15o countries in Geneva to examine long-range forecasting amidst climate change. This will be particularly important for the world’s poor farmers who can increasingly no longer depend on traditional weather patterns. One of the proposed plans will use the ubiquitous global mobile network  in many countries to share weather-related information. For better or worse, cell phone coverage is increasingly eclipsing every other utility in terms of territorial availability and penetration.

Check this IPS article for more contextual information on this important gathering.

With the G8 hunkered down in the mountain resort of Toyako, discussing the food crisis over 18-course meals and putting on the usual parade of feighed concern for the world’s problems, their inability to move forward on the great issues of the day has become more and more apparent.

While climate change activists again slammed leaders for their timid and dithering attitude to the crisis, it was a block of prominent emerging nations that provided the coup-de-grâce to the proceedings. Trumping the G8 declaration towards maybe possibly moving towards 50 per cent emission reductions by 2050, the gang of five (Mexico, Brazil, South Africa, India, and China) put forward tough conditions that tightly coupled reductions in developed countries with their historical legacy in creating the problem in the first place. The five also echoed the contract and converge strategy, calling for responsible consumption in the North, increase of foreign aid to 0.7 per cent of GNP (an old UN target that was never reached outside of Scandinavia), and financial and technical assistance for adapting to climate change.