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Time to dispair? Not according to Monbiot: “We must confront a challenge which is as great and as pressing as the rise of the Axis powers. Had we thrown up our hands then, as many people are tempted to do today, you would be reading this paper in German. Though the war often seemed impossible to win, when the political will was mobilised strange and implausible things began to happen. The US economy was spun round on a dime in 1942 as civilian manufacturing was switched to military production(25). The state took on greater powers than it had exercised before. Impossible policies suddenly became achievable.

Can one write something new about the latest synthesis report from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change? Not really

Not only is it just repeating what was in the three earlier reports this year (although maybe with a bit more political courage), but what it confirms is already known for years (although some still need convincing because they have so much to lose):

About three dozen experts on energy and climate, along with prominent figures in other fields, have sent a letter to all members of Congress, President Bush and the presidential candidates, proposing a roughly tenfold increase in federal spending on energy research.

The 2,000 residents of the Carteret Islands in Papua New Guinea are now some of the world's first climate change refuges, as rising sea levels driven by global warming have claimed their island homes. The residents of the low-lying South Pacific atolls have given up their 20-year losing fight against rising seas and will be resettled elsewhere in Papua New Guinea.

The Guardian reports this morning on a private report to Gordon Brown that suggests that Britain should oppose binding target for renewable energies in Europe (20% of all energy by 2020, as agreed earlier this year at this spring's EU Summit). The Guardian flags the juicy political bits ("work with Poland and other governments sceptical about climate change to "help persuade" German chancellor Angela Merkel and others to set lower renewable targets", "a potentially significant cost in terms of reduced climate change leadership"), but also provides some of the apparent underlying reasons provided, which are worth commenting upon: it undermines the carbon-trading scheme which "allows wealthy governments to pay others to reduce emissions"; it costs too much money (£4 billion a year to get to 9% by 2020); it does not help push for new nuclear plants as it "reduces the incentives to invest in other carbon technologies like nuclear power"; Let's say it plainly: each of these arguments is stupid, short-sighted and, quite simply, false. Let me take you through them in turn (under the fold).

The measures of the deal should lead to a 36% cut of Germany’s carbon emissions by 2020 (compared to 1990).

But does planting trees reduce global warming? Not in most places on the earth. The Carnegie Institution's Ken Caldeira summarized the result of a major 2005 study (PDF) this way: "To plant forests to mitigate climate change outside of the tropics is a waste of time."

Only one-third (26%) of respondents considered clean coal and other fossil fuel technologies to be the best means for reducing CO2 emissions in the EU by 20% by 2020, while two-thirds of respondents favoured energy efficiency improvements in transport and buildings.  

Leonardo Energy