Politicians need courage to deal with climate change

It is a bit like torturing yourself, listening to a politician talk about climate change. I inflicted some self torture when I watched and listened to Ed Miliband, the United Kingdom’s Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change on Sunday morning.

Governments will not make hard decisions to protect the climate at Copenhagen

You will see headlines and hear news items to the effect that there is only so many days (just over a month now) to get a climate protection “deal” at Copenhagen. There the nations of the world will meet in order to try and reach agreement as to the best way to protect the climate and how to divide the burden of protecting the climate between themselves. The leaders of the world’s nations, particularly those that are democratically elected, will put in an appearance in order to try and reach some kind of an agreement. They will in fact reach some kind of agreement and no doubt Mr Obama, Mr Brown and the rest will claim credit but I doubt whether the agreement they reach will be judged by history as being important or significant.

The European Union’s budgetary limit and conditional limit on climate protection

The European Union has announced that the world must spend a hundred billion Euros a year on climate change, and that the EU would pay its fair share subject to the proviso that other nations would do likewise.  It is a bit like a thief promising to stop stealing if all the other thieves stop stealing. The concept of the European Union doing the right thing for its own sake seems lost on its leaders.

Electric cars – part of the solution

In China there are plans to launch a new electric car which can hold five passengers and travel 250 miles on a single charge. It also might be fully charged in an hour. If the claims are justified the E6 will transform the automotive market and the technology I am sure will be adopted by all the major car manufacturers. For the environment this is good news, as the electric car will not produce dust, soot and particular emissions.

Gordon Brown and climate protection

I was in Oxford’s Cornmarket when a climate change stall caught my eye. The people manning the stall wanted signatures for a petition asking Gordon Brown to go to Copenhagen and use his influence to get climate change emission reduction targets agreed by the world community, so that we would have a chance of restricting global warming to two degrees Celsius.

I signed the petition even though I am far from sure that Mr Brown’s presence will make a difference at Copenhagen and even less sure that climate change targets have any value.