It’s time: we can lead climate change fight: Today’s climate meeting in Bali provides a crucial opportunity for Australia to join the global community in the leadership and action needed to avoid dangerous climate change. Australia is now ideally placed to position itself as a country that will join and lead international efforts to prevent dangerous climate change. This process will start today in Bali, the stage where a new Australian government will tell the world Australia is now ready to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. Don Henry, ABC Online

Tropical belt widens as global climate changes: Earth’s tropical region, as defined by rain and wind patterns, expanded north and south over the past few decades, another sign of global climate change, researchers reported today. The tropics have moved toward the poles at a faster rate than existing models of climate change have predicted, the scientists wrote in the journal Nature Geoscience. That may broaden the area affected by hurricanes and change precipitation patterns in subtropical regions, the researchers said. Bloomberg

The hard numbers behind climate change: Climate change is one of those issues that is so big, so complicated, and so controversial it can feel impossible to comprehend its scale, let alone work out what to do about it. With so many statistics bandied about, so many claims and counterclaims, it is difficult to distinguish hard fact from hyperbole. The debate ranges from the truly global – how many billions of dollars should be spent to combat it, and who should pay for it – to the entirely parochial – how often should your waste bin be emptied, or how many plastic bags is it OK to use on a weekly shopping trip. Financial News

UK to seek pact on shipping and aviation pollution at climate talks: Britain is to push for pollution from the global aviation and shipping industries to be included in a new international agreement on climate change at a meeting in Bali, beginning today. Action on greenhouse gas emissions from international travel and trade is among eight points that British and European negotiators intend to pursue at the meeting, which aims to set the framework for a global treaty to replace the Kyoto protocol when it runs out in 2012. The two-week Bali meeting will not produce such a deal, but officials hope it will launch serious negotiations in time for an agreement in two or three years’ time, as well as set out the likely scope and timetable. Guardian

Casual dress code for Bali summit: Ties and jackets are out and casual clothes are in, to save on air conditioning at this week’s global climate change summit in steamy Bali, a UN spokesman said today. “The dress code is to be relaxed, not to wear tie or jacket,” said John Hay, spokesman for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change secretariat. In a note on its website, the UNFCCC hoped that the dress code “will allow participants to conduct discussions in a more comfortable environment, as well as limit the use of air conditioning and thereby reduce greenhouse gas emissions”. News.com.au