On his return from Copenhagen, the Indian Environment Minister, Jairam Ramesh, told Parliament his mandate had been to protect India's right to fast economic growth, and listed killing off binding targets to reducing emissions as a key victory for his country.

via The Sydney Morning Herald.

Senator Minchin’s stance flew in the face of voluminous reports by the US Surgeon-General, the US Environmental Protection Agency and the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council, documenting nicotine’s addictive hook and the serious health risks for people exposed to secondary cigarette smoke. Even the US and British tobacco companies acknowledged the health hazards from passive smoking in internal corporate research documents from the 1970s, obtained by the US congress and placed on the public record in 1995.

Nick Minchin was a sceptic on tobacco | The Australian.

Australia appears to be experiencing the effects of climate change earlier and more dramatically than most of the other inhabited parts of the globe. A Southern Hemisphere continent that was already a land of climate extremes has become more so in recent years. Even as the tropical north is deluged by flooding and warmer ocean currents are spawning more powerful cyclones, the parched south and interior have turned into baking dead zones. The results: vast brush fires, killer heat waves, increased tropical diseases, ruined crops, loss of livestock, severe water shortages and quickening species extinction.

via Climate change hits Australia first, and hard – Los Angeles Times.