A round-up of coverage.

From the BBC blog:

The queston is: Has Davos, have the bosses here turned green, or at least environmentally aware?

The short answer appears to be yes.

I'm usually quite happy to be the village cynic, but even environmentalists attending the World Economic Forum are taken aback by the step change this year. (Tim Weber, BBC News Online business editor)

Some points of interest on climate change:
In a broadcast debate the audience were asked to vote on three motions.
1. "Nuclear energy and clean coal are the only viable alternatives to oil." 73 percent voted against - I wouldn't have predicted that from this audience.
2. "Markets are superior to regulation in leading corporations towards "greener" solutions" Again, the CEOs and business leaders voted 71 per cent against - and surprisingly in favour of regulation.
3. "A global Carbon Tax will do more harm than good".
This is the view of many airlines for example, but again the Davos audience voted against, and in favour of tax, by 64 per cent.

Some notes from other climate sessions:
One opened saying President Bush's acknowledgement that climate change is a serious challenge will change world dynamics and the legal structure being built to address the problem of emissions. Some major US companies were now saying a 30% reduction in greenhouse gases within 15 years was achievable. It was said 80 per cent of executives in the US power industry now recognise we will live in a carbon-constrained world in the future. (Richard Sambrook, BBC director of global news)

From a Reuters story on NYT.com:

Developing countries stand to suffer the worst effects of global warming, and should not have to pay for a problem created mainly by the rich, executives and experts said on Thursday.

At a gathering of 2,400 of the world's most powerful people at Davos, a ski resort in the Swiss Alps, leaders from emerging nations said they wanted the United States, European Union and others in the West to be more accountable for the heat-trapping emissions their cars and factories produce.

They also asserted their right to stoke their own economies, even if greenhouse gas levels rise as a result.

``We, as a billion people, are going to be consuming a lot of services and goods that will create emissions. We will need technology, we will need money,'' said Sunil Bharti Mittal, chairman of the telecommunications company Bharti Enterprises.

On the World Economic Forum's opening day on Wednesday, with freezing temperatures ending a balmy start to the Swiss winter, participants voted climate change as most likely to have an impact on the world in years ahead, as well as the issue global leaders are least ready for.

Leaders from rich countries have acknowledged the need for action to address the impacts of global warming for emerging nations, but made no major commitments to help during the World Economic Forum sessions.

Barbara Stocking, director of Oxfam Britain, said the poor were particularly squeezed by growing calls to limit use of fossil fuels, which trap solar rays in the atmosphere and contribute to severe storms and ecological damage.

They are also most vulnerable to global warming's effects, including irregular rainfall, floods and droughts that have decimated fertile lands and made subsistence farming difficult in much of Africa, as well as Afghanistan, Haiti and elsewhere.

``We have already seen that the effects of climate change are hitting poor people hardest and earliest,'' she said in an interview in Davos on Thursday.

'MORALLY UNACCEPTABLE'

In addition to ``big sums of money'' that would be required to help countries cope with these impacts, Stocking said emerging countries must be allowed some slack to expand their industries and create wealth.

``We must not stop developing countries in their economic development by imposing strict restrictions on carbon emissions that we do not have ourselves,'' she said.