What warming? Climate change slips among global priorities

Washington - You might call it the fourth crisis. While collapsing financial institutions plunge wealthy nations into recession and developing countries grapple with surging food and energy costs, the once urgent need to fight global warming seems to have taken a back seat.

Just last year, nearly every global and regional summit put climate change at the top of its agenda. Now it seems to have become an afterthought.

Gathered for the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, the world's finance ministers promised over the weekend in Washington to do everything they could to stabilize financial markets.

IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn warned wealthy nations not to forget about "the other crisis." About 100 million people have been plunged back into poverty because of higher food and petrol prices, which have prompted riots in dozens of countries over the last year.

All this leaves the issue of climate change out in the cold.