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Barack Obama is to invite China to join the United States in an effort by the world's two biggest polluters to stop global warming running out of control.

This study is the first to show directly the impact of climate change on a mountainous ecosystem by physically studying the location of plants, and it shows what could occur globally if the Earth's temperature continues to rise. The finding also has implications for forest management, as it rules out air pollution and fire suppression as main causes of plant death.

They'd come from the Arctic permafrost, the African plains and the jungles of Asia, but after five days of meeting, conferencing, dialoguing, blessing, praying and celebrating, the 400 attendees of the Indigenous People's Global Summit on Climate Change did not reach consensus on the how to move forward to combat the forces of climate change. Speakers over the week emphasized how much indigenous people have in common, whether they are from Borneo or Barrow, saying that they share a spiritual connection to the Earth, concern for plants and animal life and sense that for more than a century they have been left out of the decision-making process that is today eating away at the ground beneath their feet. They bear the brunt of erosion, changing migration patterns, rising sea levels, diminishing sea ice, drought, polluted air and water. But their common ground did not guarantee agreement on how to move forward.

The formal "endangerment finding" names carbon dioxide and five other heat-trapping gases as pollutants subject to regulation under the federal Clean Air Act. This in turn sets the stage - after a 60-day comment period - for broad new rules touching major sectors of the American economy and profoundly influencing how Americans use and generate energy.

Holdren said temperatures should be kept from rising more than 3.6 degrees. To get there, he said the U.S. and other industrial nations have to begin permanent dramatic cuts in carbon dioxide pollution by 2015, with developing countries following suit within a decade. Those efforts are racing against three tipping points he cited: Earth could be as close as six years away from the loss of Arctic summer sea ice, he said, and that has the potential of altering the climate in unforeseen ways. Other elements that could dramatically speed up climate change include the release of frozen methane from thawing permafrost in Siberia, and more and bigger wildfires worldwide.

Yvo de Boer, the U.N.'s climate chief, called the meeting "very positive and constructive" and said it was "helped tremendously" by the support of Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. "There was a recognition around the table that this is a global crisis that cannot be solved without a global response," de Boer said. "There is a universal recognition that the whole world needs to act on this. .................. "China, he said, is now the largest investor worldwide in clean energy technology. "I think many people are not aware of that," he said. And according to a report by HSBC Global Research in February, almost 40 percent of the spending in China's economic stimulus package is supposed to go toward renewable energy, electric grid improvements, pollution control efforts, and other clean-energy-related projects.

BEIJING (AP) - A dirty brown haze sometimes more than a mile thick is darkening skies not only over vast areas of Asia, but also in the Middle East, southern Africa and the Amazon Basin, changing weather patterns around the world and threatening health and food supplies, the U.N. reported Thursday. (November 13, 2008)