healthier, happier and richer

It will be cheaper to control climate change than not to control it, as the Stern Review memorably said. However, that does not mean that it will be cheap.

Canada is responsible for only 2% of global greenhouse gas emissions and also 2% of the historic contribution. However, it uses a third more energy per unit of GDP than the USA, has per capita annual emissions of 23 tons and is developing tar sands – a wasteful way (from the point of view of energy and water) of getting oil from tar, which is notable for being an even more polluting energy source than coal.

On Saturday, I was on a panel at the World Science Festival in New York, with James Hansen of NASA and three others. Hansen’s position on nuclear can be summarised simply: it’s better than coal.

President Obama has done more to control climate change than President Bush ever did. However, that is hardly setting the bar very high.

Today is the fortieth Earth Day, so it is an appropriate time to consider what the environmental movement has achieved globally over the last four decades.

Jeremy Rifkin, president of the Foundation on Economic Trends and adviser to the European Commission and several European governments, says that the Copenhagen Climate Summit in December should focus, not on targets and constraints, but on a climate business plan.

He is right.

The Copenhagen Climate Summit starts today. Prospects are looking better than they were a few weeks ago and the fact that President Obama has decided to attend the final negotiating session, rather than just for a token visit at the start, is excellent.

One of Kevin Rudd’s first acts on becoming Australian prime minister was to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, which his predecessor refused to do. Now, he is trying to introduce a cap-and-trade system to help deliver up to a 25% reduction in Australia’s emissions by 2020. This isn’t enough, but it is certainly better than denying the reality of climate change, as many of his opponents still do.

UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling, today gave his pre-budget report to parliament. This included some good climate measures.

Climate change could soon trigger an early election in Australia.

So climate change has claimed a political victim in Australia and you don’t know whether to laugh or cry…

Our website, Climateanswers.info, is broadly split up into three: technological answers, political answers and behavioural answers.

Why have we done this?

Well, this site is really about actions and not prohibitions – what we can do, rather than just what we shouldn’t. We do not wear hair shirts at Climate Answers and we are born optimists!

Much has been talked about ‘carbon offsetting’ in recent years and it is now a well known expression. But what is it and is it desirable?

Well, it is easy to define in three distinct ways, but whether it is a good idea depends on what is actually meant.

How well have Obama and Energy Secretary Chu done so far on promoting energy efficiency, renewables, CCS and electric vehicles? A very positive assessment is made by the Center for American Progress.

Question: Why don’t we introduce a fiscal-neutral carbon tax, like that proposed by Prof James Hansen?

Alessandro De Maida

In 1992, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) was signed at the first World Summit on Sustainable Development, which was held in Rio de Janeiro. The Convention did not set targets, but provided the framework for negotiations about targets. These were agreed in the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.