This is an unusually busy moment in the unhappy history of efforts to curb climate change. In two weeks at the end of June the world's three biggest polluters unveiled carbon-reducing measures. In China and America these are more ambitious than previous policies. But they fall far short of what is needed to rein in the relentless rise in global carbon emissions. The centrepiece of the changes was the announcement, on June 25th, of new controls on American greenhouse-gas emissions, "one of the most important decisions we make as a nation", Barack Obama boasted (see page 39). A week before that China, the largest greenhouse-gas producer, unveiled its most tar-reaching attempt so far to control toxic air pollution; it also started a pilot carbon-trading scheme in the southern city of Shenzhen, loosely based on the troubled European scheme.
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