Richard Black suggests that with climate change not sucking up quite as much air time, there was a chance for some other important environmental issues to move up in prominence.

From his BBC blog (Dec. 24):

From my perspective, 2008 has provided something of a breathing space in a calendar that is becoming more and more dominated by climate change.

2007 saw the chain of IPCC reports and the key UN climate summit in Bali; and 2009 should see the crafting of a new global climate pact that in its complexity and breadth will make the Kyoto Protocol look like an infant's plaything.

A journalist has to follow the big political and social stories and big set-piece events, and that can leave precious little time for anything else.

The last year has been slightly quieter on the climate front, which has meant a little more time for covering the other environmental issues that don't so often make headlines.

The ongoing loss of global biodiversity is one; another is the steady growth in the world's population - and therefore consumption - that could undermine progress in other areas.

Deforestation remains a cross-cutting issue, impinging on biodiversity, water resources, climate change, and the livelihoods of people who depend directly on the forest.

These are all issues we have tried to highlight over the year, although I fear climate change has still probably emerged as the issue covered most often.

One aspect of climate politics that has largely escaped comment over the year is that 2008 marks the beginning of the Kyoto Protocol's first "commitment period" - the time by which the reductions are supposed to be made.

The protocol prescribed cuts by the period 2008-12; no longer is it a future target. It is a sobering thought.