You wouldn't Adam and Eve it ... edible art at church

It is an unpromising site for a new garden – an exposed plot in a Surry Hills churchyard near the noisy traffic of the city. But the trees and plants that have emerged in recent weeks are more than just decoration. They form a work of art that is part of a new environmentally themed exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art. A trio of Victorian artists are creating what they call "an abundant edible landscape" in the grounds of St Michael's Anglican Church. They have planted Aboriginal bush tucker and all manner of fruits and nuts, including peaches, nectarines, almonds, plums, guavas, chestnuts, strawberries and grapefruit. The idea is that the living artwork, called Food Forest, will contribute to the Surry Hills community by providing healthy organic food, including regular contributions to the church's soup kitchen. It is also meant to make locals – and anyone passing by – think about their reliance on food from supermarkets.

Climate 'sceptic' Bjørn Lomborg now believes global warming is one of world's greatest threats

One of the world’s most prominent climate change sceptics has called for a $100bn fund to fight the effects of global warning, after rethinking his views on the severity of the threat. Bjørn Lomborg, a self-styled "sceptical environmentalist" who has long opposed international curbs on carbon emissions, is now urging world leaders to invest heavily in clean energy. In a new book argues that global warming is “a challenge humanity must confront" and “undoubtedly one of the chief concerns facing the world today". Prof Lomborg, an author and academic at Copenhagen Business School, is calling for a tax on carbon emissions to fund international efforts to boost wind, wave, solar and nuclear power. Money is also needed to cover the research and development costs of innovative projects to counter rising temperatures, he argues. He writes: "Investing $100bn annually would mean that we could essentially resolve the climate change problem by the end of this century."

U.N. to study impact of incomplete climate action

The U.N. panel of climate scientists will look at the costs of "second best" ways of fighting global warming amid doubts that all countries will sign up to U.N.-led action, a leading expert said on Tuesday. Ottmar Edenhofer, co-chair of the U.N. working group looking at the economics of global warming, said the last U.N. report in 2007 had assumed that all countries would take part and that new technologies for curbing greenhouse gases would be available. The next reports in 2013-14 by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which is facing calls for an overhaul of its management and better fact-checking after errors in the 2007 assessment, will include other options. "We intend to carry out 'second best' scenarios, where we assume we have a fragmented climate regime, where we have limited availability of technologies, to describe a much more realistic policy space," Edenhofer told Reuters by telephone.