Governments ‘must act now’ to combat climate change

Apr 22 2008 by Steve Dube, Western Mail

The current approach to global warming was compared last week to someone on a diet who considered it was fine to eat cream buns because he had also eaten a salad.

Environmental journalist George Monbiot told a full house at the annual Milford Debate at the Institute of Grassland and Environmental Research at Gogerddan, Aberystwyth, that however much governments paid lip service to reducing the use of fossil fuels, their policies were to extract as much coal, gas and oil as they could and continue to use them.

“While that’s going on it does not matter what else you do.

“All current renewable policies are a waste of time,” he said.

That was why he and other environmental campaigners had tried to stop the development of Europe’s biggest opencast mines at Ffos-y-Fran, Merthyr Tydfil, where 10 million tonnes of coal will be extracted from a 1,000-acre site over a 17-year period.

“We have to leave it in the ground,” he said. “We need the total de-carbonisation of the economy.”

Mr Monbiot, who lives in Machynlleth with his Welsh-born wife Angharad and their young daughter, said the issue was urgent.

“Even a two-degree temperature rise this century could be too much, and could cause a progressive warming of the biosphere that would be beyond control.

The problem, he said, was “how to sustain a world population of nine billion if climate change is hammering agricultural yields and there’s not enough fresh water”.

His solutions were global rather than micro-generation, and an extension of the grid – through a DC direct current system rather than the “less-efficient” AC alternating current now in use. Generation would come from solar panels across the Sahara desert, hydro power in Scandinavia and the Alps, wind, wave and tidal turbines and geo-thermal systems.

But Mr Monbiot said no government was seriously tackling the problem.

“The only sensible policy is a massive cut-back in fossil fuel use. We have not got much choice and we have not got much time,” he said.

“Governments have to act with a deliberation we have not seen since the US was dragged into World War II by Pearl Harbor. Within 90 days of that attack companies like General Motors were producing fighter bombers instead of cars.

“If only climate change was something you could bomb, Bush would have sorted it out by now.”

He told the audience, “All it requires is political will and the only place where that will can come from is you.”

Earlier Sir John Houghton, formerly a leading member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and head of the Meteorological Office, said he was optimistic about the outcome of the struggle to combat global warming.

He said the scientific community was committed, the necessary technology was available and his Christian faith informed him of “God’s commitment to His creation”.

Sir John, who was born in Disserth and now lives in Aberdovey, said the developed world had become wealthy on the back of cheap oil, coal and gas.

“We did not realise the damage we were causing, especially to poor countries and the rich world has a moral imperative to reduce the damage and help poor countries to develop sustainably,” he said.

He advocated more efficient energy generation and use and capturing carbon underground or in forests – particularly from the coal power stations being built in China.

“The world energy industries all agree that’s the number one action, and the cost of doing that over 50 years is about £400bn – half the cost of the Iraq War so far,” said Sir John.

Britain had some of the biggest tides in the world, and they could supply up to 50% of UK energy needs, but government money was needed to make it happen.

Micro-generation could also help. A simple solar panel attached to a car battery could drive house lights, television and fridge.

Agricultural and forestry waste could meet 10% of energy needs through biomass and bio-crops and bio-fuels could also help.

He said the plant-breeding station at Gogerddan was creating one of the world’s largest and most diverse crops of miscanthus or elephant grass, including a hybrid with a 25% increase in yield.

“All these bio-fuels can be local from the way we use them to the way they generate energy,” he said.