Nokia’s in the hot seat this week. The telecoms giant has agreed to answer readers’ questions on its environmental record at the Guardian newspaper’s website – what better chance to ask the company what it really thinks about the challenge of catastrophic climate change?

Until now, Nokia has been found a little wanting when it comes to speaking up about the most pressing environmental issue of our time.

Its CEO, Olli Kallasvuo, might have written an article ahead of the December Climate Summit in Copenhagen (Who didn’t talk about the climate in those days?), but these comments are still something of an exception. Until then, all we had were six words on the company’s website.

Our Cool IT ranking also shows that Nokia still doesn't offer much in terms of political advocacy on the issue; it scored just four out of 25 points here. When it comes to presenting solutions, all we could give was one meager point (out of 50).

Facebook’s first ever data center, full of state of the art and energy efficient equipment, will be built in Prineville, Oregon in the north west of the US. Unfortunately the energy required to operate the data center will be supplied by the utility company Pacific Power, which is primarily fuelled by coal – the largest single source of global warming pollution in the world. We have called on Facebook to dump coal all together and instead use 100 percent renewable energy, taking the lead in being part of the solution to climate change.

Take Action, click here to join our group on Facebook!

Bill Gates, when asked to give "the talk of his life - in 18 minutes" at the TED Talks conference last week, set a startling precedent for business leaders, choosing energy and climate as his subject - by calling for nothing less than zero carbon emissions by 2050.

Gates' commitment to stopping climate change couldn't come at a more urgent juncture and it's a major development for 3 reasons.

As for suggestions - here's our assesment of Sony in our latest Guide to Greener Electronics. Or you could ask:

When will Sony be putting PCs free of worst hazardous substances on the market like Apple and HP already have?

Will Sony be publicly supporting the Japanese Government's emissions reduction target?

Will Sony be supporting a stronger law (RoHS) on toxic chemicals in Europe?

Why does Sony not score better in our Cool IT Challenge?

Questions end Friday, you can see Sony's answers so far here

Copenhagen FAIL

The failure of world leaders in Copenhagen to deliver a fair, ambitious, and legally binding agreement is a setback to global efforts to respond to the urgent threat of climate change--and kick start the low carbon global economy.

While governments have said they will be back to strike a deal at the UN climate summit in Mexico in 2010, Copenhagen's "outcome" clearly begs the question--Which countries will overcome the status quo voices of their fossil fuel industry, and put the necessary policies in place to commit their nation to climate protection and economic growth from a low carbon 21st century economy?

Eureka! In what appears to be a slowly evolving trend (on a petri dish), yet another ICT CEO has come out with a statement on the climate crisis!

As the time and opportunity for bold pre-Copenhagen gestures finally wound down last week with the summit opening Monday, Dell came out of the smog with a last minute show of dedication. Good for Dell; but can IBM and Microsoft tow the advocacy line?

Microsoft replied to our twitter petition today - more than 230 twitterers with more than 110,000 followers, retweeted our message. Our near crazed fantasies about Steve Ballmer morphing into a climate change hero have been met with a some response. Microsoft has just announced on their blog that it will be going to the Copenhagen climate summit. Wunderbar!

But wait, what for again? Well, before you all reach for your greenwash panic alarms - lets look at the details.

UPDATE 1: Microsoft responds, goes to Copenhagen.

UPDATE 2: Dell's op-ed in Forbes (Sponsored by Microsoft?) sets the bar for IT leader advocacy on Copenhagen