How Green is my Government?

Written for publication in May 2011.                                                 ‘ by their fruits ye shall know them’                                                                                                                                        Matthew 7.20 In politics, the fog of war is replaced by the miasmas of spin and the murk of tabloid trash. It takes a patient eye and a strong stomach to see a little […]

Climate Risk

Written for publication in May 2006. Climate change will be the dominant issue of the 21st Century. There is now consensus within the scientific community that not only is the problem caused by human activities but that it is more serious and more urgent than was first thought. Climate change […]

Costing the climate

Written for publication in July 2005. To their considerable surprise, British journalists at Gleneagles were approached by members of the US delegation wishing to comment on a recent report by the House of Lords Committee on Economic Affairs.  This report, ‘The Economics of Climate Change’ was published to little notice […]

Emissions Trading

Written for publication in May 2005. Like all good theories, the theory of emissions trading is elegant. Governments establish an overall limit of the amount of a pollutant that can be emitted. Enterprises are then allocated permits to emit the pollutant up to that limit – known as the ‘cap’. […]

Life after death

Written for publication in June 2001. Climate change has much in common as an issue with nuclear disarmament and trade liberalisation. All three issues go to the heart of the prospects for human well being; all combine ferocious technical complexity with the capacity to arouse deep political passions: all require […]