A call to arms on climate change
In today's report from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), we have a mayday alert. The fourth scientific assessment from this expert group in 17 years tells us that the first tank battalions have already broken through the border. Reading between the committee-written lines one can sense the panic.
In 1990, I listened to the scientists who had completed the IPCC's first assessment in a Berkshire hotel. At a press conference, Margaret Thatcher, not otherwise known for eco-doom-mongering, warned the report would "change our way of life", and that we would cry out in the future not for oil, but water. The world seemed to be listening. The UN called for multilateral negotiations and most governments signed up. But these have run now for 16 years, and have done little to stem greenhouse gas emissions.
