The Chinese government announced on Monday that it would prohibit its airlines from paying a controversial “carbon tax” on flights to and from Europe imposed by the European Union, putting the continental regime in a tough bind as it seeks assistance from Beijing to tackle the region’s spiraling debt crisis. Unspecified retaliatory measures will be taken if the EU persists, according to Chinese officials, who say the taxes violate international treaties.

This June's United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UN CSD) in Rio de Janeiro will largely sidestep discussions of climate-change theories as leaders perceive the subject to be too controversial, according to summit insiders seeking ambitious and wide-ranging agreements on the world’s future. What is being touted as the biggest political gathering of the year will instead focus on framing UN “green” goals in terms of economic prosperity and environmental necessity.

Government climate dignitaries and the Associated Press hailed the “landmark” deal reached Sunday at the United Nations' global-warming summit in Durban, South Africa. According to environmentalist groups, however, the agreement represented a failure of the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) to “save” the world from supposedly “dangerous” carbon dioxide emissions.

No members of Congress or President Obama’s cabinet bothered to show up at this year’s United Nations climate summit in Durban, South Africa. Attendance at the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17), meanwhile, was down about 70 percent from the 2009 global-warming conference. And the media said very little about the gathering.

United Nations “experts” released a preliminary report during the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) climate-change summit in Durban, South Africa, claiming the Earth was still heating up and rapid government action would be needed to stave off global warming. But in the wake of the growing “Climategate 2.0” scandal, analysts said the newest wave of UN scare mongering appeared increasingly desperate and ridiculous.

A massive new batch of embarrassing e-mails and documents from prominent climate “scientists” associated with the “Climategate” furor of 2009 was released on November 22, just a week before the next big United Nations global-warming summit in Durban, South Africa.

After a series of embarrassing predictions and wild factual errors damaged global-warming alarmists’ credibility — possibly beyond repair — the United Nations is again warning of impending doom: localized floods and droughts caused by climate change theoretically linked to human activity. But skeptics are still not buying.

A bipartisan coalition in Congress is going after a European Union scheme to impose carbon taxes on Americans flying to and from Europe, overwhelmingly approving a bill to stop the “illegal” tax. The EU’s CO₂ regime is so unpopular that governments around the world and even the United Nations have also asked the bloc to back down.

The Australian federal government’s effort to levy a tax on carbon-dioxide emissions to battle supposed “climate change” is facing massive resistance from voters, despite a flurry of pro-carbon-tax propaganda and government-funded reports touting alleged benefits of the scheme while downplaying its harmful effects.

Gov. Chris Christie announced late last week that New Jersey would be leaving the controversial Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a “cap-and-trade” scheme supposedly designed to fight global warming by forcing up energy costs and creating a slush fund to lavish “climate” money on “green” causes.