At Bali climate change meeting, a hard look at Kyoto: Efforts to start two years of talks aimed at crafting a new global pact on climate change enter their most intense phase this week. Ministers from more than 180 countries arrive Wednesday to give final shape to a framework for the talks, which could begin as early as next June.  But even as they look to the future, ministers also will be dealing with the present – giving a final burnish to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol before turning it loose next year. The protocol’s first – and perhaps only – enforcement period begins Jan. 1 and runs through 2012. UN officials here say they are cautiously optimistic that industrial countries as a group will meet – and perhaps beat – the pact’s goal for trimming greenhouse-gas emissions, mainly carbon dioxide. But critics of the 10-year-old agreement have already written it off as a failure, even before it takes full force. Christian Science Monitor

Wind turbines could fuel all homes by 2020: Plans to build around 7,000 wind turbines off the coast of Britain are to be unveiled by the Government. The offshore wind farms would generate enough electricity for every home in the UK by 2020, John Hutton, the Secretary of State for Business, will announce. He conceded yesterday that the turbines would “change our coastline” but claimed they would ensure the UK played its part in combating climate change. The plans would make the UK’s wind industry twice the size of any other country’s. By 2020, it could be producing 33 gigawatts of electricity. Offshore wind farms currently produce two gigawatts – enough for 1.5 million homes. Daily Mail

‘Green jobs’ to outweigh losses from climate change: Climate change is creating millions of “green jobs” in sectors from solar power to biofuels that will slightly exceed layoffs elsewhere in the economy, a U.N. report said on Thursday. Union experts at U.N. climate talks in Bali, Indonesia, said the findings might ease worries among many workers that tougher environmental standards could mean an overall loss of jobs for many countries. “Millions of new jobs are among the many silver, if not indeed gold-plated, linings on the cloud of climate change,” Achim Steiner, head of the U.N. Environment Program (UNEP) said in a statement. “New research reveals that these jobs are not for just the middle classes — the so-called ‘green collar’ jobs — but also for workers in construction, sustainable forestry and agriculture, engineering and transportation,” he said. Reuters

Climate pinch on Australia: Developed countries such as Australia will need to make deep cuts to their greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 if the world is to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, according to the draft deal the UN hopes will go to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and other leaders at the Bali climate conference this week. Also, global emissions will need to be cut by half by the middle of the century. The draft road map for the new climate agreement, released by the United Nations yesterday, does not explicitly mention legally binding targets for developed countries, in an apparent effort to keep the United States in the global negotiations. Instead it talks about “quantified national emission objectives”. The Age

Demonstrators across world call for action to stop climate change catastrophe: Skiers, fire-eaters and environmental campaigners have joined in demonstrations worldwide to draw attention to climate change and push leaders to take action. From costume parades in Manila to protest by London cyclists, marches and events took place in hundreds of cities and towns across the world Saturday to coincide with the two-week U.N. Climate Change Conference, which runs through the end of the coming week in Bali, Indonesia. Hundreds of people rallied in the Philippines’ capital — wearing miniature windmills atop hats, or framing their faces in cardboard cutouts of the sun. International Herald Tribune