Duangrit Bunnag scans the murky white high-rises that sketch Bangkok’s haphazard skyline, despairing of the drab view from his architecture firm’s clean and minimalist office. He despairs of the overdone pseudo-Thai villas that seem to spring up on every stretch of available sand.
As climate-change guilt among tourists grows, hotels and resorts are finding they need to do more to please the green consumer than simply ask them to re-use their towels. Undersea air-cooling systems, intelligent lighting and spas constructed entirely from mud are all being employed to woo tourists concerned about their carbon footprint.
Air travel is booming as the world’s population grows and fares fall, but its impact on the Earth’s sensitive climate must be taken into account in any new global-warming pact, green groups say. More than 900 delegates flew into Bangkok this week for a meeting on global warming, spewing about 4 181 tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
No image available
/ 13 December 2007
The United States has been a mover and shaker in climate change talks for over a decade, but delegates at the Bali summit say US clout is on the wane as countries look beyond the Bush era. Some say that with US elections due to take place less than 11 months, it leaves President George Bush a lame duck.