politics of climate change policy

Abstract

Climate change has moved to the centre stage of public concern in a remarkable way and in a very short space of time. Scientists have expressed serious concerns about global warming for a quarter of a century or more. Environmental groups have struggled for much of that period to get governments and citizens to take the issue seriously. Yet within the past few years, climate change has assumed a very large presence in discussion and debate, and not just in this or that country but across the world. It is not entirely clear why. Certainly the science of climate change has moved on. Much of it is summarised in the work of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) of the UN—a highly influential body. The efforts of former US Vice-President Al Gore, famously, have helped elevate public consciousness about the dangers of global warming. Both received a Nobel Prize for their endeavours. The coincidence of several disasters has played a part. No-one can be sure if Hurricane Katrina was connected to global warming. Yet the fact that a city in the richest country in the world could be reduced to ruin overnight was a visible warning that worse could be ahead. In the heat wave in Europe in 2004, 30,000 people died. The Asian tsunami of that year, in which 10 times as many people lost their lives, had nothing at all to do with climate change, but was a violent reminder of the power of nature and our own fragilities.