Going green in tough times

As belts tighten in these trying economic times, there are growing worries that environmental issues will end up taking a back seat.

Nongovernmental organizations, in particular, face the prospect of reduced funding for their green causes as sponsors and donors divert limited resources to the stabilizing of troubled finances.

In a roundtable recently organized by this newspaper, the director of the Asia Society's Center on U.S.-China Relations, Orville Schell, worried that efforts to deal with the challenges of climate change are in danger of being "crippled".