Your ice blogger has been in Scotland over the past week, intrigued by claims by the country’s First Minister (Scotland is part of the UK but has a devolved parliament in Edinburgh) Alex Salmond that Scotland could become the “Saudi Arabia” of renewable energy, in particular marine energy.
The country is well suited to develop tidal, wave and wind energy and some interesting announcements were made while I was there.
Scotland has ambitious emissions reductions targets, higher than those of the UK as a whole.
More anon, when I have processed some of the material I collected. There should be some photos here by tomorrow at the latest.

There is a danger of climate change sliding into the background. Recently I talked to Professor Mojib Latif, one of Germany’s leading experts on climate change. He said he thought people have a natural tendency to try to find ways of avoiding doing unpleasant things – like changing your lifestyle to reduce emissions. He’s still optimistic overall, though.
Today I received some info about an art project to draw attention to climate change by having sculptures created on icebergs and letting everybody follow the iceberg’s progress online. Interesting? Or just a gimmick? Judge for yourself here. I’ll be interested to hear peoples reactions:
The Cool Emotion Iceberg Sculpture project
The IPCC has appointed a “watchdog”, it seems, to try to avoid any more damaging errors making their way into the reports. The Amsterdam-based InterAcademy Council, or IAC, will be bringing out a report on its review of the IPCC procedure by August.
Meanwhile, the negotiators are gearing up for the next round of preparatory talks here in Bonn for the “big meeting” in Mexico towards the end of the year. They’re starting early, in May.
I’ll try to keep you posted on any important developments.