There is no reason that the over 50s should be any more climate friendly than the under 50s, only for the very simple reason that most parents care very much about the kind of life that their children are going to have. The difference between over 50s and under 50s is probably not very great in terms of how much they care about the climate, the difference is that parents are much better placed to make a difference to whether we solve the problem or not.
A lot of people have over the last 5 years made efforts to change their consumer habits. It is good for our health, it is good for us to be participating in things that other people are participating in. Your not alone when you make those small changes in your own life, and what matter is the aggregate of all those individual small changes adds up to something big. It is not an alternative to governments doing the really big and difficult things that have to be done, and it is down to governments and businesses to do them.
Dealing with climate change is a really big job, we are in a world where the climate is changing and it is going to take all kinds or actions, it is going to take individual actions, it is going to take communities to get involved in doing things in local communities and cities, it is going to take national governments to act, business is really beginning to get its act together, but it is also going to take government to work together. At the end of the day, we are going to have to cooperate if we want to solve this problem. There is no way that it is going to be solved by one country acting on its own.
These are excerpts of an interview for LBC. The full interview can be listened to here: