(Excerpt) According to climate scientists, averting the worst consequences of climate change requires that the increase in global temperature should be limited to 2°C (or 3.6°F). to achieve that objective, global emissions of green house gases (GHGs)—the main human cause of global warming—must be reduced to 50 percent of 1990 levels by 2050.

The key to successful climate change abatement at those scales lies in leveraging the collective actions of developed and developing countries. Cumulatively, developed countries have been responsible for most human emissions of GHGs. that picture will be quite different in the future as emissions from the developing world take over the top mantle. Given this dynamic, there is a general agreement internationally that developed countries will lead emissions reductions efforts and that developing countries will follow with “nationally ap- propriate mitigation actions.” turning that agreement into environmentally beneficial action requires close international coordination between the developed and developing countries in allocating the responsibility for the necessary reductions and following up with credible actions. However, the instruments employed so far to promote the necessary collective action have proved to be insufficient, unscalable, and questionable in terms of environmental benefit and economic efficiency.

Currently, the most important and visible link be- tween developed and developing countries’ efforts on climate change is the Clean development Mechanism (CdM). the CdM uses market mechanisms—the “carbon markets”—to direct funding from developed countries to those projects in developing countries that lead to reductions in emissions of warming gases. In reality, the experience with the CdM has been mixed at best since its inception in 2006. while the CdM has successfully channeled funding to many worthy projects that reduce emissions of warming gasses, it has also spawned myriad projects with little environmental benefits. overall, the CdM has led to a significant overpayment by developed countries for largely dubious emissions reductions in developing countries.

Many countries around the world are taking a fresh look at nuclear power. An important cause of what has come to be called the global nuclear renaissance is the prospect of severe disruptions to the earth's climate brought about by continued increases in greenhouse gas emissions, primarily from the combustion of fossil fuels. Nuclear power occupies a unique position in the debate over global climate change as the only carbon-free energy source that is already contributing to world energy supplies on a large scale and that is also expandable with few inherent limits. These attributes are regularly highlighted by nuclear energy advocates and now, increasingly, by some formerly anti-nuclear activists, even as other environmentalists remain strongly opposed to this technology.

BACKGROUND: Safety climate refers to shared perceptions of what an organization is like with regard to safety, whereas safety culture refers to employees' fundamental ideology and orientation and explains why safety is pursued in the manner exhibited within a particular organization. Although research has sought to identify opportunities for improving safety outcomes by studying patterns of variation in safety climate, few empirical studies have examined the impact of organizational characteristics such as culture on hospital safety climate.

PURPOSE: This study explored how aspects of general organizational culture relate to hospital patient safety climate.

METHODOLOGY: In a stratified sample of 92 U.S. hospitals, we sampled 100% of senior managers and physicians and 10% of other hospital workers. The Patient Safety Climate in Healthcare Organizations and the Zammuto and Krakower organizational culture surveys measured safety climate and group, entrepreneurial, hierarchical, and production orientation of hospitals' culture, respectively. We administered safety climate surveys to 18,361 personnel and organizational culture surveys to a 5,894 random subsample between March 2004 and May 2005. Secondary data came from the 2004 American Hospital Association Annual Hospital Survey and Dun & Bradstreet. Hierarchical linear regressions assessed relationships between organizational culture and safety climate measures.

FINDINGS: Aspects of general organizational culture were strongly related to safety climate. A higher level of group culture correlated with a higher level of safety climate, but more hierarchical culture was associated with lower safety climate. Aspects of organizational culture accounted for more than threefold improvement in measures of model fit compared with models with controls alone. A mix of culture types, emphasizing group culture, seemed optimal for safety climate.

PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS: Safety climate and organizational culture are positively related. Results support strategies that promote group orientation and reduced hierarchy, including use of multidisciplinary team training, continuous quality improvement tools, and human resource practices and policies.

Programs to distribute improved biomass stoves have traditionally been unsuccessful, despite enormous potential health and climate benefits. This research note helps explain the reasons for this by considering three main prerequisites for technology adoption by the poor. The first success factor is motivation on the part of customers to adopt the new product. When motivation does not exist initially, it must be created through education, social marketing, or improved design. The second essential component is that the product be affordable, be it through disposable income, financing, or subsidies. Finally, the success of a product is dependent on the level of user engagement necessary to take advantage of it.

Improved cookstoves rank poorly on all three dimensions: their benefits are rarely valued highly by customers at the outset, they are expensive, and they require a significant change in lifestyle to be put into use.

These three potential barriers to adoption are relevant to any product aimed at consumers at the "bottom of the pyramid" in income. They help explain why some products (for example, Coca-Cola and cell phones) have penetrated markets rapidly while others such as cookstoves have achieved very limited penetration.