Let's forget about Copenhagen and just get on with the job

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I had promised myself that I wouldn’t write about climate change, Copenhagen and the futility of boondoggles but it appears I lied. So let’s start with the heart of the debate at the moment:

1. Climate change is real –as a brief perusal of our planet’s history shows, anyone denying this is being just a little daft

2. The greenhouse effect is the main driver of climate (and without which we would all be dead)

3. The actions of man have increased the volumes of greenhouse effect producing gases in the atmosphere

On the basis of these three facts, I’m prepared to accept the likelihood of climate change being (in part) anthropogenic. However, I do not see that this truth requires us to extend the power of government. Nor do I see any remote justification for having pointless and offensively expensive boondoggles in nice places to agree meaningless communiques just so as to argue for having more offensively expensive boondoggles in nice places to talk about it all again....

It seems to me that we were toddling along quite nicely on the fighting climate change malarkey – reducing energy consumption, switching gradually to more sustainable fuels, building more efficient homes, wasting a little less and thinking more about the impact our lives have on the environment around us.

Here’s some good stuff:

The Woodland trust’s “Trees for All” programme has now planted 6.6 million trees – on top of the 20 million other trees planted in the UK in the last twenty years

From 1992/3 to 2007/8 Britain’s recycling rate increased from below 5% to nearly 35% and there is some evidence of a decline in household waste arising

New building regulations promoting “zero carbon” development should mean new houses meet these standards from 2016 onwards (our houses produce nearly a third of total carbon emissions)

Belatedly the Government confirmed future plans for nuclear power – the quickest way to achieve rapid reductions in carbon emissions

These are a combination of locally-driven policies – Cambridge’s cycling strategy is another good example – and policies deriving from a realistic approach to the business of energy generation. All the grand statements about “reducing carbon” that emanate from boondoggles like Copenhagen are of less importance than making the common sense case for us using fewer resources in our everyday lives.

Rather than directing millions to meetings about climate change, why don’t we redirect that money to research into the technology that will decouple our leisure and pleasure from consumption of those pesky fossil fuels. And rather than painting barely believable disaster scenarios we should be making the case for thrift – and providing real incentives to support that case.

Grandstanding is a substitute for action not a route to action. Let's stop meeting like this and get on with the job.

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