healthier, happier and richer

Coal has a very high carbon content, so is a major source of greenhouse gasses and the economic costs of polluting the atmosphere are not borne by the polluter, In economic jargon, ‘the externalities are not internalised’.

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.

Burning coal is an extremely damaging way to generate electricity. Coal has a very high carbon content, so is a major source of greenhouse gasses. Burning it also results in pollutants that are directly damaging to human health, such as sulphur dioxide.

On 24 June 2009, the UK government announced that the UK aims to have installed 33Gw of offshore wind by 2020, generating a quarter of the UK electricity needs. But it won’t be cheap.

On Wednesday and Thursday, I attended a conference on renewable energy in Scotland, on the stunningly beautiful island Skye. I talked about how to dispel myths about climate change and renewables.

Scotland has immense potential to expand renewables, particularly wind and the Scottish National Party (SNP), when it took over the Scottish government in 2007, set a target that half of all Scotland’s electricity should come from renewables by 2020.

The US budget deficit has more than tripled to a record $1.4trn (£877bn, €948bn) in the year to 30 September 2009, due to increased government spending and a big drop in tax revenues. So, how is the US going to pay for a transition to a low-carbon economy?

Over six million households in the UK currently need to spend more than 10% of their income on keeping warm – a figure that many predict to increase with the likely rise in fuel price over the next few years.