Publication of the IPCC report on Climate Change

The Intergovernmental Panel on climate Change (IPCC) published its report “Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability” on 31^st March.  This is a critically important document and Steve Trotter in The Wildlife Trusts National Office has done an excellent blog about it.

The report is consistent with all the IPCCs previous reports and in line with the vast majority of scientific evidence on climate change.  Climate change deniers really have contributed nothing to the debate for the last 20 years and need concern us no further.

More worrying, however, is the point that our economy seems to be going in completely the wrong direction.  Indeed the disconnect is incredible.  Last month BBC news reports linking the floods to climate change often were presented back to back with items on government plans to support fracking – with no sense of conflict or irony!  We know we must reduce carbon emissions by 80% yet we are in the midst of a renewed push for new roads, more air travel and an extra runway at Gatwick.  It is difficult to see how the current approach to economic development is anything other than massively conflicted.  There are answers to the question of how to develop in an environmentally acceptable way – but we won’t find them if we don’t look for them.