Responding to Climate Change - what you need to know

'Battle against climate change is like fighting the Nazis': Al Gore urges world leaders to unite

By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 2:13 AM on 8th July 2009

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Former U.S. vice president Al Gore has likened the battle against climate change to fighting the Nazis during World War Two.

Speaking at the World Forum on Enterprise and the Environment in Oxford, the one-time presidential candidate called on the global community to approach the climate change crisis with 'a sense of joy'.

He also reminded delegates

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'Winston Churchill aroused this nation in heroic fashion to save civilisation in World War Two,' Mr Gore said.

'We have everything we need except political will but political will is a renewable resource.'

Mr Gore, who won the Nobel Peace Prize for the climate change film An Inconvenient Truth, said the greatest challenge would be to convince people that the threat from climate change was as urgent as the threat from Nazi Germany.

'It can happen. It will happen. We have everything we need except political will, and political will is a renewable resource.

'We can berate politicians for not doing enough, and compromising too much, and not being bold and addressing this existential threat to civilisation.

'But the reason they don't is that the level of concern among populations has still not risen to cross the threshold to make the political leaders feel they must address it.'

Mr Gore said all countries needed to take action, adding: 'We have to have a global agreement, and the way which we can get one is if politicians in each country act, and the only way that can happen in turn is if awareness rises to the level to make them feel that it is a necessity.'

Young people would be at the forefront of pushing for such change, in the way that those who worked to achieve President

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Battle against climate change begins at home

The Conservatives' Green Deal would help to greatly reduce the 27% of UK carbon emissions that comes from households, writes shadow housing minister, Grant

Grant Shapps

guardian.co.uk, Thursday 26 November 2009 11.49 GMT

Reaching agreement at this UN summit will be the key to addressing one of the defining challenges of our century. But the hard work isn't just setting those targets, it's reaching them. Each country will have to set their own priorities to reduce emissions and here in the UK, we'll need to look close to home.

Twenty-seven per cent of all the carbon emissions in this country actually come from the homes we all live in. So it's clear that improving the carbon footprint of our housing stock is crucial if we are to meet our legally binding carbon reduction targets.

Part of the solution lies in making the new homes we build as energy efficient as possible and I enthusiastically endorse the concept of building all new homes at zero carbon. However, the fact remains that 85% of the housing stock that we'll be living in by 2050 already exists.

So, there is a simple and, once again, inconvenient truth – greening-up the 25m existing homes is essential. The efficiency of these properties has been largely ignored thus far.

Under a Conservative government however we will introduce the Green Deal. Every household in this country will be entitled to an allowance of up to £6,500 for energy improvements. Utilities companies, charities, social landlords will improve homes with no cost to the homeowner.

Healthy competition in retro-fits will create 70,000 new jobs and a £2.5bn marketplace, while consumers save money and most importantly 9.4m tonnes of carbon emissions are avoided. It's a great scheme, but that doesn't necessarily lead to great take-up. The key is to create a trigger for people to easily and quickly sign up for retro-fitting.

Imagine if you could walk into your favourite store, buy some clothes or do your weekly shop and then at the checkout, as you hand over your clubcard, the cashier offers you the prospect of permanently lower utility bills. There's nothing to pay, now or later. Your home will be retro-fitted and all you'll notice is that it costs less to heat and power it. Unless you enjoy burning money, you're going to love the Green Deal. Behind the scenes this retailer is working with the banking sector to fund the £6,500 spent on retro-fitting your home, resulting in home improvements like energy-efficient lighting, modern boilers, cavity and loft insulation.

Under a Conservative government you won't have to imagine this scheme, because the likes of Marks & Spencer and Tesco are already interested and more providers of all types will want to get in on the act. In future you'll be able to pick-up your groceries and green-up your home at the same time.

But living a greener life isn't just about the physical changes you can make to your home; it's about how you live in it too.

Even without retro-fitting our properties, there are plenty of things we can do to influence our energy consumption behaviour. Last year I installed a small device which sits on the window sill in our kitchen and constantly reports how much electricity we're using as a household.

NASA takes on climate change with new $2.4B

With manned spaceflight programs nearly a thing of the past, NASA is handing the shuttle-building baton to private interests like Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic and Elon Musk’s Space X program. But the administration may be finding new life — in the battle against climate change. A major proponent of this idea, President Barack Obama has shuffled NASA’s budget to dedicate $2.4 billion to study earth from above.

The money, to be doled out over the next five years, is a 62 percent increase in the administration’s Earth Science budget — one of the initiatives that was pruned back during the Bush presidency. NASA will use the infusion to measure ocean and atmospheric temperatures over different regions, track ice cap size, and gauge the amount of carbon dioxide in the air at different altitudes — and where it came from. Ten new missions will be launched in all.

There are already 13 satellites dedicated to climate change research orbiting the Earth — but many of these are antiquated and badly need to be replaced. The only way the data collected will be valuable is if consistent and reliable measurements are taken at constant intervals. There’s very little room for error, considering last December’s controversy over fudged climate research and the backlash it inspired. The current equipment would not be capable of this level of accuracy.

In addition to replacing and fixing up existing satellites, NASA will launch five new ones, including an extension to the International Space Station (pictured above) that will continually monitor the ozone. Considering this new functionality, the Obama administration wants to extend the station’s lifespan by five years — it was originally intended to end in 2015 due to budget cuts.

The budget increases have faced some tough opposition in Congress. Not only are many of the members unenthusiastic about dedicating more resources to climate change study, they are also concerned that funds are being diverted from NASA’s Constellation program, which focuses on improving traditional spaceflight. The Obama administration has been instrumental in promoting private spaceflight companies to take over in this area, an idea that hasn’t won many fans.