I’ve just been reading an interview with the UK premier Gordon Brown in the Observer. Like Barack Obama, he’s planning to “do a Roosevelt” with a “new deal” programme to tackle the ecomomic crisis.And Brown too is planning to include alternative energies and other climate-related projects.He is proclaiming a “historic opportunity” to reach a new international agreement on climate change. I’m sure the opportunity is there. The question is whether the industrialised countries can grasp it and come up with solutions to get India and China on board by the end of the year to come up with an effective post-Kyoto.I’m also sure Brown and Obama are right when they say fighting the recession will not come at the cost of the climate, but that the environment is part of the solution.
(See www.observer.co.uk)
Every crisis also opens up some opportunities. Perversely, the economic crisis could help solve the climate one. There’s plenty of scope for investing in – and ultimately making profit from- climate-saving measures. And at the risk of encouraging the old cliche about the “canny” Scots, I have to agree with my countryman GB (great initials for a British pm) that money is probably the key here.(As with most issues in our society, I fear). Financial incentives tend to motivate more people than the urge to save the planet for future generations. High petrol prices made people think about driving less or changing their cars, not saving the environment. So more power (preferably renewable) to the “green deals”.

On Friday morning, I was unpleasantly jolted awake by an item in the radio news, saying the world’s CO2 emissions had reached record levels.The Global Carbon Project – a respected international research consortium – tells us in its report Carbon Budget 2007Global Carbon Project
that our Co2 levels are already 37% higher than the benchmark of 1750, with the start of the Industrial Revolution. The scientists say the present concentration of 383 parts per million is the highest during the last 650,000 years, probably even the last 20 million years.
Even since the advent of this millennium, emissions have been rising drastically. And it’s not as if we aren’t aware of the related problems.
If you go searching the internet, you’ll find bloggers and the usual sites are reporting on the GCP report.
Climate Blog from Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung (German language, but some good English links)
But on the mainstream media over the weekend, it virtually petered out into nothing.
Emissions have been increasing hugely in China and India. But they haven’t been decreasing in the developed, industrialised, wealthy world either. Will we never learn? Has the message still not come across?
We’re still burning far too much in the way of fossil fuels, deforestation is still going on, and all our carbon sinks – including the ocean and the forests- are losing some of their ability to absorb carbon.
This report is based on data from the UN, on climate resarch published in all the major journals, on sophisticated models and on energy daty collected by BP, which is unlikely to be exaggerating the dangers from burning fossil fuels.
This has got to be a wake-up call. But I have the impression a lot of people just went back to sleep once the alarm had gone off.
Yes, I realize we could be facing another Big Depression – but isn’t the fact that global warming is proving almost impossible to stop, with potentially catastrophic results for the planet worth a bit more attention?