London is carbon crazy. The consciousness about carbon is sky high in the UK capital. From the bid to provide ‘carbon footprint’ labels on all consumer goods; Walkers Snacks carbon labelling on its products; the announcement by Tesco in January that it would assign a carbon label to every product on its shelves through to Marks & Spencer’s plans to be carbon neutral by 2012. Even the Mayor, Ken livingstone, has vowed to reduce the city’s carbon emissions by 60% within 20 years. [joel makower]

Al Gore comes up with a solution for global warming. After criticism for outlining the problem of global warming without providing a solution, Al Gore has published ‘the only approach that will work’, which says that the next president must quickly conclude a new and tougher climate change pact (than Kyoto) by the end of 2009. [NY times, page 2, moving beyond Kyoto] Gore takes the bull by the horns when he asks if the US is so scared to lead the crisis that they insist that other countries carry the same load when they have contributed almost nothing to the crisis?

Crisis as Mt Kenya rivers dry up. Rivers that once roared with copious amounts of water are now silent, managing only to limp downhill. Residents of Kirua, Mbari, Nari and Rurii now walk for kilometres in search of water. As glaciers recede due to global warming, the rivers are drying up. [eastandard]

Uganda bans plastic bags. Since yesterday, Uganda has issued a ban on plastic bags to cut down the stinking piles of rubbish that litter its dusty capital and other urban area. What to use instead – banana leaves – the traditional material for carrying goods. Uganda’s ban follows a similar ban on Tanzania’s Zanzibar islands last year. [IOL]