Various: Imposing caps on greenhouse gas emissions to prod energy users to conserve or switch to nonpolluting technologies isn't working fast enough to combat an unexpected rise in global emissions and a decline in energy efficiency say a growing chorus of economists, scientists and students of energy policy. "It will be too little and come too late," writes Andrew C. Revkin in the New York Times.

What is needed says economist Jeffrey D. Sachs, head of the Earth Institute at Columbia University in Scientific American, is the development of radically advanced low-carbon technologies, which will only come about with greatly increased government spending by what has so far been an anemic commitment to research and development.

A different mindset is highlighted by Juliet Eilperin in the Washington Post who writes about a public discussion between climate scientist James E. Hansen and Duke Energy CEO James E. Rogers, an energy company company with a number of coal-fied power plants. Hansen was complaining that two new power plants built by Duke Energy did not include any carbon-capture technologies to reduce their emissions.

Rogers, said the scientist's demand reflects a "snap-your-fingers, instant transition of the economy" mind-set. "My requirement is to balance reliability, affordability and clean energy," Rogers said. "He's apparently focused on the clean perspective."

Globally, the number of coal power plants that will have carbon capture and storge units is limited. "You don't have other countries lining up and investing serious funding" in this technology," says Rachel Crisp, deputy director of Britain's cleaner fossil fuels unit to the Washington Post.