The United Kingdom has banned two government-funded advertisements for exaggerating claims of catastrophic man-made global warming. The independent media watchdog organization, Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), ruled that mainstream climate science does not support assertions made in the ads, reports the Daily Mail.

The United Nations is launching an independent review of its climate agency, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which has weathered harsh criticism due to numerous problems with its 2007 comprehensive climate report. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and IPCC Chair Dr. Rajendra Pachauri announced the review at a press conference at UN Headquarters in New York.

The top United Nations climate official is resigning. Yvo de Boer, executive director of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC), announced he will leave his position as of July 1, 2010, a month before his term was scheduled to end.

Many analysts bemoan the failure of governments at December's UN Climate Change Conference to arrive at a legally binding agreement to rescue the world from alleged pending eco-disaster. But the UN's top climate official claims Copenhagen was, in many ways, a success.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is calling for drastic reductions in planned U.S. missile defense as U.S. and Russian officials spend the last week of the year negotiating a new nuclear disarmament treaty in Geneva, Switzerland. The most recent agreement, the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I), expired on December 5, but both countries have agreed to continue observing it until a new accord is settled. They are also bound by the 2002 Moscow treaty which limits nuclear warheads.

Tony Blair, global-warming activist and former British prime minister, is under fire from the media for allegedly trying to cash in on climate change. His company, Windrush Ventures, Ltd., registered a new Internet name of "Low Carbon Capital Fund" just weeks before the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. David Derbyshire with the Daily Mail reports that some view this as Blair's way of preparing to make money off green technology. Derbyshire questioned Blair's office, and a spokesman responded, "From time to time, we register names in an area we may be interested in."

Parties on both sides of the global-warming debate are calling the UN Climate Change Conference at Copenhagen a failure. Instead of producing a legally binding treaty to curb greenhouse gas emissions, a majority of participating nations merely agreed to "take note" of the Copenhagen Accord, a non-binding agreement to commit to significant emission reductions by next year and to fund environmentally "vulnerable" countries.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is promising delegates to the UN Climate Change Conference billions in foreign aid to developing countries. She's also promising commitment to forming an international authority with regulatory powers over energy and the environment.

Among the demonstrations accompanying the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen was the Saturday, December 12 "Global Day of Action" at which protestors from 108 countries marched four miles through the city's streets to demand "climate justice." Brent Baker with the Media Research Center pointed out in his BiasAlert article, "Network journalists who were quick to see racists, haters and extremists amongst the 'tea party' protesters were oblivious... to communists" participating in the march.

The mayors of several Italian cities are rebelling against a European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruling that bans the crucifix from public classrooms. The ECHR found that the display of crucifixes in state schools is a "violation of the right to education taken jointly with the freedom of thought, conscience and religion."