Pretending the climate email leak isn’t a crisis won’t make it go away

Climate sceptics have lied, obscured and cheated for years. That’s why we climate rationalists must uphold the highest standards of science
I have seldom felt so alone. Confronted with crisis, most of the environmentalists I know have gone into denial. The emails hacked from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia, they say, are a storm in a tea cup, no big deal, exaggerated out of all recognition. It is true that climate change deniers have made wild claims which the material can’t possibly support (the end of global warming, the death of climate science). But it is also true that the emails are very damaging.
The response of the greens and most of the scientists I know is profoundly ironic, as we spend so much of our time confronting other people’s denial. Pretending that this isn’t a real crisis isn’t going to make it go away. Nor is an attempt to justify the emails with technicalities. We’ll be able to get past this only by grasping reality, apologising where appropriate and demonstrating that it cannot happen again.
It is true that much of what has been revealed could be explained as the usual cut and thrust of the peer review process, exacerbated by the extraordinary pressure the scientists were facing from a denial industry determined to crush them. One of the most damaging emails was sent by the head of the climatic research unit, Phil Jones. He wrote “I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow - even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!”
One of these papers which was published in the journal Climate Research turned out to be so badly flawed that the scandal resulted in the resignation of the editor-in-chief. Jones knew that any incorrect papers by sceptical scientists would be picked up and amplified by climate change deniers funded by the fossil fuel industry, who often – as I documented in my book Heat – use all sorts of dirty tricks to advance their cause.
Even so, his message looks awful. It gives the impression of confirming a potent meme circulated by those who campaign against taking action on climate change: that the IPCC process is biased. However good the detailed explanations may be, most people aren’t going to follow or understand them. Jones’s statement, on the other hand, is stark and easy to grasp.
In this case you could argue that technically he has done nothing wrong. But a fat lot of good that will do. Think of the MPs’ expenses scandal: complaints about stolen data, denials and huffy responses achieved nothing at all. Most of the MPs could demonstrate that technically they were innocent: their expenses had been approved by the Commons office. It didn’t change public perceptions one jot. The only responses that have helped to restore public trust in Parliament are humility, openness and promises of reform.
When it comes to his handling of Freedom of Information requests, Professor Jones might struggle even to use a technical defence. If you take the wording literally, in one case he appears to be suggesting that emails subject to a request be deleted, which means that he seems to be advocating potentially criminal activity. Even if no other message had been hacked, this would be sufficient to ensure his resignation as head of the unit.
I feel desperately sorry for him: he must be walking through hell. But there is no helping it; he has to go, and the longer he leaves it, the worse it will get. He has a few days left in which to make an honourable exit. Otherwise, like the former Speaker of the House of Commons, Michael Martin, he will linger on until his remaining credibility vanishes, inflicting continuing damage to climate science.
Some people say that I am romanticising science, that it is never as open and honest as the Popperian ideal. Perhaps. But I know that opaqueness and secrecy are the enemies of science. There is a word for the apparent repeated attempts to prevent disclosure revealed in these emails: unscientific.
The crisis has been exacerbated by the university’s handling of it, which has been a total trainwreck: a textbook example of how not to respond. RealClimate reports that “We were made aware of the existence of this archive last Tuesday morning when the hackers attempted to upload it to RealClimate, and we notified CRU of their possible security breach later that day.” In other words, the university knew what was coming three days before the story broke. As far as I can tell, it sat like a rabbit in the headlights, waiting for disaster to strike.
When the emails hit the news on Friday morning, the university appeared completely unprepared. There was no statement, no position, no one to interview. Reporters kept being fobbed off while CRU’s opponents landed blow upon blow on it. When a journalist I know finally managed to track down Phil Jones, he snapped “no comment” and put down the phone. This response is generally taken by the media to mean “guilty as charged”. When I got hold of him on Saturday, his answer was to send me a pdf called “WMO statement on the status of the global climate in 1999″. Had I a couple of hours to spare I might have been able to work out what the heck this had to do with the current crisis, but he offered no explanation.
By then he should have been touring the TV studios for the past 36 hours, confronting his critics, making his case and apologising for his mistakes. Instead, he had disappeared off the face of the Earth. Now, far too late, he has given an interview to the Press Association, which has done nothing to change the story.
The handling of this crisis suggests that nothing has been learnt by climate scientists in this country from 20 years of assaults on their discipline. They appear to have no idea what they’re up against or how to confront it. Their opponents might be scumbags, but their media strategy is exemplary.
The greatest tragedy here is that despite many years of outright fabrication, fraud and deceit on the part of the climate change denial industry, documented in James Hoggan and Richard Littlemore’s brilliant new book Climate Cover-up, it is now the climate scientists who look bad. By comparison to his opponents, Phil Jones is pure as the driven snow. Hoggan and Littlemore have shown how fossil fuel industries have employed “experts” to lie, cheat and manipulate on their behalf. The revelations in their book (as well as in Heat and in Ross Gelbspan’s book The Heat Is On) are 100 times graver than anything contained in these emails.
But the deniers’ campaign of lies, grotesque as it is, does not justify secrecy and suppression on the part of climate scientists. Far from it: it means that they must distinguish themselves from their opponents in every way. No one has been as badly let down by the revelations in these emails as those of us who have championed the science. We should be the first to demand that it is unimpeachable, not the last.
monbiot.com

Barack Obama to attend Copenhagen climate summit

UN and campaign groups welcome Obama’s decision, but critics say ‘right city, wrong date’
John Vidal and David Adam
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 25 November 2009 18.38 GMT
President Barack Obama will travel to Copenhagen next month for the United Nations climate summit with a new offer to cut US greenhouse gas emissions by 17% on 2005 figures by 2020.
But critics said the long-awaited White House initiative would do little to ensure a successful outcome to the talks, and that it came at the wrong time in the negotiations.
Obama will travel to Copenhagen on 10 December, on his way to collect the Nobel peace prize in Oslo the next day. But the White House gave no indication that the president was prepared to return to the city when Gordon Brown and 60 or more world leaders fly in to add impetus to the final deal one week later on 18 December - the last day of the talks.
The Observer revealed this week that the US administration was poised to announce a specific figure for cuts ahead of the Copenhagen talks.
Obama’s commitment to attend the talks was welcomed by the UN and many environment groups but dismissed by others as a photo opportunity designed to upstage the other 60 world leaders.
“I think it’s critical that President Obama attend the climate change summit in Copenhagen. We have figures from all industrialised countries, with the exception of the United States. This is the first thing we need, and this is critical,” said Yvo de Boer, the UN climate chief.
Lord Stern, the former head of the UK Government Economic Service and author of the influential Stern review on the economics of climate change, said: “It is important that President Obama and all the leaders of the major nations attend the United Nations climate change conference in Copenhagen next month. Only leaders can take the decisions on the broad range of issues, such as finance, technology and trade, that are necessary to reach a strong framework agreement on climate change. Strong action and inspirational leadership will be required in Copenhagen.”
But others dismissed Obama’s appearance. “The Copenhagen climate summit is not about a photo opportunity, it’s about getting a global agreement to stop climate chaos,” said a Greenpeace international spokesperson. “President Obama needs to be there at the same time as all the other world leaders. This is when he is needed to get the right agreement. It’s the right city, but the wrong date. It seems that he’s just not taking this issue seriously.”
“The new US offer to cut emissions 17% on 2005 figures equates to 6% at 1990 levels and will not help the climate summit reach a strong deal to stop climate chaos,” Greenpeace added. The 17% figure is the same as the emission cut in energy legislation passed by the US House of Representatives earlier this year.
By comparison, the EU has pledged to reduce emissions by 20% by 2020 on 1990 levels – or 30% if there is a global deal.
The White House also laid out possible future emissions cuts: 30% by 2025, 42% by 2030 and 83% by 2050, but these are all on 2005 levels. The figures are drawn from pledges in existing planned US domestic cap and trade legislation.
Observers close to the negotiations questioned whether the US target for 2020 would be enough to draw large developing nations such as China into a global deal. The US may have to promise massive financial assistance as a sweetener, they said. The White House statement did not mention finance.
The US move comescomes ahead of a press conference scheduled for tomorrow morning in Beijing, where Chinese officials are expected to announce China’s planned target to reduce the energy intensity of its economy by 2020, perhaps by 40-45%.
Hu Jintao, president of China, had been expected to announce the figure at a high-level summit in New York in September, but instead pledged only a cut by a “notable margin”.
US officials have been anxious about the timing of the Chinese announcement, which follows significant pledges to reduce emissions from nations such as Brazil, Russia and South Korea in recent weeks.
Obama had previously said he would only attend the conference if negotiators were “on the brink of a meaningful agreement and my presence in Copenhagen will make a difference in tipping us over the edge”.
Others urged Obama to prepare to return to Copenhagen. “If his presence during the latter days of the meeting becomes necessary to secure the right commitments, we hope the president will be willing to return to Copenhagen with the rest of the world’s leaders during the final stages of the negotiations,” said WWF-US climate programme director, Keya Chatterjee.
De Boer acknowledged, however, that industrialised countries’ emission cut pledges, estimated to total between 16 and 23%, fall far short of what scientists say is needed to head off serious impacts from global warming. Scientists say that reductions of between 25-40% are necessary compared with a 1990 baseline.
The UK prime minister, Gordon Brown, confirmed he would be at the Copenhagen talks earlier this month, along with other world leaders including the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, and Australia’s prime minister, Kevin Rudd.

Andy Burnham: ‘Climate change poses serious threat to health’

UK health secretary backs Lancet report that says reducing carbon emissions and home insulation will improve the country’s health

Press Association
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 25 November 2009 12.40 GMT
The impacts of climate change on health are a “very real and present danger”, the health secretary, Andy Burnham, warned today at the launch of a new report on how rising temperatures will affect the public.
The Lancet study, published ahead of UN talks on tackling climate change in Copenhagen, calls on health ministers and professionals around the world to recognise the danger global warming poses to health.
It says putting health at the centre of action on climate change could deliver the twin benefits of preventing illness and cutting emissions. Reducing carbon emissions from vehicles could reduce urban air pollution, which can cause heart and breathing problems, and insulating houses could prevent deaths from extremes of cold and hot weather, as well as making houses more energy efficient. The report also says reducing the amount of meat people eat will cut the impact of livestock on the climate while lowering the amount of saturated fat people eat.
Burnham said: “Climate change can seem a distant, impersonal threat – in fact the associated costs to health are a very real and present danger.
“Health ministers across the globe must act now to highlight the risk global warming poses to our communities. We need well-designed climate change policies that drive health benefits.”
The energy and climate change secretary, Ed Miliband, said global warming was a serious threat to public health and an ambitious deal to cut climate emissions is needed from the crunch Copenhagen talks.
“To protect the world’s health we must stop dangerous climate change happening and limit temperature increases to no more than 20C. An ambitious and fair deal in Copenhagen will not only have major benefits in terms of reducing the climate change-related spread of infectious diseases and risks to food supply, but will also result in immediate green benefits in terms of a healthier environment and lifestyle for a low-carbon Britain – and a low-carbon world,” Miliband said.
This year a report in the Lancet warned climate change was the biggest threat to global health in the 21st century, with catastrophic effects such as insect-borne diseases such as malaria and dengue fever spreading more easily.

Copenhagen climate change conference 2009: climate contrarians

A vocal band of climate change sceptics - with powerful supporters in politics and business - question the science behind the calls for urgent and drastic international action on carbon emissions.

In March 2001, the Bush administration announced that it would not implement the Kyoto Protocol that would require nations to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, claiming that ratifying the treaty would create economic setbacks in the US and did not put enough pressure to limit emissions from developing nations.

The recent publishing of thousands of emails and documents stolen from the University of East Anglia (UEA) claiming to show that researchers massaged figures to mask the fact that world temperatures have been declining in recent years, provided the perfect launch pad for the latest heavy-hitting climate change critic, Lord Lawson.
Lord Lawson, who served as chancellor for six years under Margaret Thatcher, plans to establish a think tank to challenge the consensus that drastic action is needed to combat global warming.
Bjørn Lomborg is the poster boy of the contrarian trend.
The Danish academic became internationally known for his best-selling and controversial book The Skeptical Environmentalist, whose main thesis is that many of the most-publicised claims and predictions on environmental issues are wrong.
Lomborg campaigns for an unconventional position on climate change: he opposes the Kyoto Protocol and other measures to cut carbon emissions in the short-term, and argues that we should instead adapt to short-term temperature rises as they are inevitable, and spend money on research and development for longer-term environmental solutions, and on other important world problems such as AIDS, malaria and malnutrition.
After the publication of The Skeptical Environmentalist, complaints of deliberately misleading data and flawed conclusions. against Lomborg were made to the Danish Committees on Scientific Dishonesty (DCSD).
The ruling was a mixed message, deciding the book to be scientifically dishonest, but Lomborg himself not guilty because of lack of expertise in the fields in question.
Ian Rutherford Plimer is an Australian geologist, academic and businessman. He is a critic of the scientific consensus that global warming is driven by anthropogenic CO2 .
He has published approximately 60 academic papers and six books, including his book on the global warming debate, Heaven and Earth — Global Warming: The Missing Science.
He is critical of greenhouse gas politics and argues that extreme environmental changes are inevitable.
Via his long-running column in the Sunday Telegraph , Christopher Booker has claimed that man-made global warming was “disproved” in 2008.
In his article Facts melted by ‘global warming’ he claimed that “Without explanation, a half million square kilometres of ice vanished overnight.”
Siegfried Frederick Singer is an American atmospheric physicist.
In March 2007, Singer appeared in the controversial documentary film The Great Global Warming Swindle which asserted that the mainstream view on global warming was “a lie” and “the biggest scam of modern times”.
Singer has been a consultant to various major corporations, including GE, Ford, GM, Exxon, Shell, Sun Oil, Lockheed Martin and IBM.
Washington-based Competitive Enterprise Institute is an outspoken opponent of global warming constituting a problem, and of government action that would require limits on greenhouse gas emissions.
It favours free-market environmentalism, stating that market institutions are more effective in protecting the environment than governments.
In recent years some sceptics have contradicted their contarianism. Ronald Bailey , author of Global Warming and Other Eco-Myths (published by the Competitive Enterprise Institute), stated in 2005, “Anyone still holding onto the idea that there is no global warming ought to hang it up”.

HIV infections on the decline

Fewer people are becoming infected with HIV, according to a new report

‘Copenhagen Diagnosis’ offers a grim update to the IPCC’s climate science

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change received a kick in the pants today from members who say the climate situation is much worse than the IPCC has so far reported.
From Grist, part of the Guardian Environment Network
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 25 November 2009 12.02 GMT

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change—the world’s foremost body for weighing and assessing climate science—received a kick in the pants today from members who say the climate situation is much worse than the IPCC has so far reported.
Twenty-six climatologists—including 14 IPCC members—have released a startling update to the panel’s work, reporting that sea levels could rise and methane-laden arctic permafrost could melt much sooner than the panel had anticipated.
“The Copenhagen Diagnosis: Updating the World on the Latest Climate Science” is not an official IPCC report; it’s a summary of the hundreds of peer-reviewed research papers that have been published since the IPCC’s last assessment. It was released now to fill the long gap in between official IPCC reports—the last was released in 2007, but the drafting text is more than three years old, and the next isn’t scheduled until 2013. It was also timed to the Copenhagen climate talks, of course.
The essence of the new report is that things are grimmer than the IPCC has reported. And it’s not like the panel has been painting a rosy picture—its 2007 report concluded that the warming-induced melting of the Greenland ice sheet could create significant sea-level rise in this century. IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri said at the time, “If there’s no action before 2012, that’s too late. What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment.”
The new diagnosis finds that arctic sea ice is melting 40 percent faster than the panel estimated just a few years ago. Another startling finding: Satellites have found that the global average for rising sea levels was 3.4 millimeters per year from 1993-2008. The IPCC estimated it would be 1.9 mm for that period—short by 80 percent.
The report’s authors (who include the preeminent Stephen Schneider) write that “if global warming is to be limited to a maximum of 2°C above pre-industrial values, global emissions need to peak between 2015 and 2020 and then decline rapidly.” If you’re keeping score, 2015 is just over five years away—somewhat less comforting than the distant “2050″ you used to hear so much about.
In a time when the correspondence of scientists is hacked and stolen and as a matter of political strategy, some will no doubt dismiss the group’s research entirely. And even IPCC fans may question whether its decision-making process is swift enough to remain relevant. It certainly seems that events are outpacing the political system’s ability to deal with them.
Below are the key findings from the report:
Surging greenhouse gas emissions: Global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels in 2008 were nearly 40 percent higher than those in 1990. Even if global emission rates are stabilized at present-day levels, just 20 more years of emissions would give a 25 percent probability that warming exceeds 2°C, even with zero emissions after 2030. Every year of delayed action increases the chances of exceeding 2°C warming.
Recent global temperatures demonstrate human-induced warming: Over the past 25 years temperatures have increased at a rate of 0.19°C per decade, in very good agreement with predictions based on greenhouse gas increases. Even over the past ten years, despite a decrease in solar forcing, the trend continues to be one of warming. Natural, short-term fluctuations are occurring as usual, but there have been no significant changes in the underlying warming trend.
Acceleration of melting of ice-sheets, glaciers and ice-caps: A wide array of satellite and ice measurements now demonstrate beyond doubt that both the Greenland and Antarctic ice-sheets are losing mass at an increasing rate. Melting of glaciers and ice-caps in other parts of the world has also accelerated since 1990.
Rapid Arctic sea-ice decline: Summer-time melting of Arctic sea-ice has accelerated far beyond the expectations of climate models. The area of sea-ice melt during 2007-2009 was about 40 percent greater than the average prediction from IPCC AR4 climate models.
Current sea-level rise underestimated: Satellites show recent global average sea-level rise (3.4 mm/yr over the past 15 years) to be ~80 percent above past IPCC predictions. This acceleration in sea-level rise is consistent with a doubling in contribution from melting of glaciers, ice caps, and the Greenland and West-Antarctic ice-sheets
Sea-level predictions revised: By 2100, global sea-level is likely to rise at least twice as much as projected by Working Group 1 of the IPCC AR4; for unmitigated emissions it may well exceed 1 meter. The upper limit has been estimated as ~ 2 meters sea level rise by 2100. Sea level will continue to rise for centuries after global temperatures have been stabilized, and several meters of sea level rise must be expected over the next few centuries.
Delay in action risks irreversible damage: Several vulnerable elements in the climate system (e.g. continental icesheets, Amazon rainforest, West African monsoon and others) could be pushed towards abrupt or irreversible change if warming continues in a business-as-usual way throughout this century. The risk of transgressing critical thresholds (”tipping points”) increases strongly with ongoing climate change. Thus waiting for higher levels of scientific certainty could mean that some tipping points will be crossed before they are recognized.
The turning point must come soon: If global warming is to be limited to a maximum of 2 °C above pre-industrial values, global emissions need to peak between 2015 and 2020 and then decline rapidly. To stabilize climate, a decarbonized global society—with near-zero emissions of CO2 and other long-lived greenhouse gases—needs to be reached well within this century. More specifically, the average annual per-capita emissions will have to shrink to well under 1 metric ton CO2 by 2050. This is 80-95% below the per-capita emissions in developed nations in 2000.
• This article was shared by our content partner Grist, part of the Guardian Environment Network

Combat climate change – by planting a tree in your own backyard

Grab a spade and help lock-up greenhouse gas emissions

Leo Hickman
The Guardian, Thursday 26 November 2009
There is an ancient proverb – some claim it hails from China, others Africa – that says, “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago – the next best time is now.” Whatever the proverb’s origins, it’s a universal truth that planting a tree, on so many levels, is a beneficial thing to do. Trees are good, full stop.
In fact, trees are so wonderful that an independent study, commissioned by the Forestry Commission, is calling for 23,000 hectares of trees a year — equivalent to about 30,000 football pitches – to be planted across the country over the next 40 years. This, it says, would help the UK “lock up” 10% of the nation’s predicted greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
But do we need to plant all these trees in forest-sized tracts for maximum effect? Could we get the same benefit if every British homeowner planted a tree in their backyard instead? And what species of trees are up to the job? The study’s authors state that trees take 50-100 years before they “prove their worth” and whatever tree species we plant now must be suited to the climactic realities they might face in coming decades.
Professor Sir David Read, the emeritus professor of plant sciences at Sheffield University, who led the study’s panel of experts, says that we must start the hunt for species that could cope with a warmer, Mediterranean-type climate that might become typical in some parts of the country. “White and red oaks from America, for example. Or oaks from French genetic stock. Willow and popular will be good species, too.”
But not all species are suited to a cramped backyard, where roots could damage foundations, or fast-growing trees could quickly cast shadows over neighbours. The Woodland Trust, which will be trying on December 5 to set a new world record for the most number of trees planted in an hour, says that hazel, hawthorn and silver birch are the most suitable for small spaces.
Beyond the backyard, Read says that “the larger the scale of planting the better” in terms of maximising any reduction of emissions. He acknowledges that the public will prefer “extensions to natural woodlands” rather than “terrifying blocks of conifers”, even though the study found that a coniferous forest in Scotland can remove, on average, 24 tonnes of CO² per hectare per year, whereas an oak forest in southern England removes 15 tonnes of CO².
Read stresses, though, that we should all get involved: “I would never discourage anyone from planting a tree in their backyard. Any action is better than none.”

Incentivise people to help the environment

Telegraph View: The Tories are to be commended for incentivising people to do more to help the environment, rather than penalising them if they do not.

Telegraph View Published: 7:56PM GMT 25 Nov 2009
The Conservatives have shown this week just how sure-footed they have become on green issues, with plans to reward householders with cash vouchers for recycling waste and to offer grants for people to improve the energy efficiency of their homes (which remains by far the most cost-effective way of conserving fossil fuels). Commendably, the Tories appreciate the importance of incentivising people to do more to help the environment, rather than penalising them if they do not. George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, argues that “carrots are better than sticks” – which, as our environment columnist Geoffrey Lean has pointed out, even donkeys know to be true, though it seems to be beyond the comprehension of ministers.
Such incentives also chime with the public mood. The amount of household waste that is recycled has increased five-fold in little more than a decade. Most readers of this newspaper are keen recyclers and will welcome the fact that the Tories would reward them for their thrift, rather than punish them with new taxes. Contrast this approach with yesterday’s launch by Andy Burnham, the Health Secretary, of a report saying that we should cut the number of animals bred for the table by a third. Reducing livestock, it claims, will not only reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but will also mean fewer heart attacks, because of the cut in saturated fat consumption.
Brilliant. Why has no one thought of this before? Perhaps because, while there are many sensible ways to go green, wiping out the livestock industry is not one of them. As well as being ruinous for farmers and the landscape, it would be utterly impractical. The number of livestock is dictated by the market for the meat. Arbitrarily cutting the domestic supply by a third will not make people greener – just angrier

Yes he can: Obama finally decides to spend a day at the climate change talks

Tim Reid in Washington

President Obama will travel to Copenhagen next month to attend the climate change conference, the White House announced yesterday, ending weeks of uncertainty over whether he would go, and intense pressure from Europe for him to do so.
Mr Obama will take to the summit a US commitment to make substantial cuts in greenhouse gas pollution over the next two decades, removing one of the greatest obstacles to a deal in Copenhagen. But he will attend only the first day of the summit, so he is likely to miss the key decision-making phase, and opposition to emissions legislation in the US Senate is likely to make it difficult for him to enforce the promised targets.
Mr Obama will offer to cut emissions by 17 per cent from 2005 levels by 2020, by 30 per cent before 2025 and by 42 per cent before 2030. The White House said that the targets represented a “pathway” to Mr Obama’s goal of cutting American emissions by 83 per cent by 2050. Until yesterday the US, the world’s biggest polluter after China, had been the only developed nation not to announce emissions targets before the conference.
Mr Obama’s intended presence and the targets were welcomed in Europe after weeks of lobbying by governments, including Britain, for him to attend. “It’s critical that President Obama attend,” said Yvo de Boer, the United Nations climate chief.

Obama is snubbing the rest of the world in order to suit his own travel diary
Ben Webster

The White House has spent weeks vacillating over whether Mr Obama should attend the conference, but an aide said it was decided that he should go to give the talks momentum. After he attends the summit on December 9, he will fly to Oslo to collect his Nobel Peace Prize.
At least 75 world leaders, including Gordon Brown, will attend the summit. Unlike Mr Obama, most are expected to gather for the final days of the conference, which runs until December 18.
Mr Obama conceded during his trip to China this month that a binding climate change treaty with firm emissions targets to replace the expiring Kyoto Protocol — the very purpose of the Copenhagen summit — was beyond reach, despite two years of negotiations.
The most that can be salvaged is a “political agreement”, with individual nations setting their own targets, which Mr Obama said on Tuesday night he hoped would lay the groundwork for a binding treaty next year. Hopes of a meaningful deal in Copenhagen look far from assured because China has signalled that it is unlikely to cut emissions for now. It has also so far failed to offer a reduction target before the conference.
Yu Qingtai, China’s special envoy to the summit, accused developed nations of failing to fulfil pledges made under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol and defended his Government’s refusal to accept mandatory emissions cuts at the meeting. “When a nation is in a period of fast-paced industrialisation and urbanisation, energy consumption and total emissions go up rapidly,” he said.
Mr Obama’s initial target of a 17 per cent cut by 2020 is in line with legislation before the US Congress. Yet it is stalled in the US Senate with little hope of passage, casting serious doubt on the President’s ability to enforce reduction targets back home.
Republicans and some Democrats in the Senate claim that Mr Obama’s cap-and-trade legislation will be costly to US business at a time of expanding deficits and high unemployment.
Mr Obama had hoped that he could attend the Copenhagen conference with climate change legislation already passed. China’s reluctance to make significant concessions will further complicate those efforts, because many senators will argue that China — a rapidly rising economic rival to the US — is failing to do its part.
The White House hopes that Mr Obama’s Copenhagen visit will strengthen the US Government’s shift on climate change policy after eight years of the Bush Administration, which opposed broad mandatory reductions in greenhouse gases.
Cabinet officials including Steven Chu, the Energy Secretary, and Gary Locke, the Commerce Secretary, will also go to Copenhagen in the most senior contingent of American officials to take part in international climate talks.

Green and confused: The office offenders

Offices that leave their lights on are eco-unfriendly
Kieran Cooke

You recently said that we should use energy-efficient light bulbs at home, but what about the huge office blocks that leave their lights on? Why is the householder the target of the eco-lobbyists and not the commercial sector?
You’re right, of course. While some companies have caught the habit of energy saving, it is remarkable how many want to boast of their profligacy by lighting up buildings like Christmas trees 24 hours a day. Perhaps they think that burning the midnight oil — even when the only people in the building are the watchman and cleaners — is a mark of success. It is a sign of corporate stupidity.
The UK is far behind many countries when it comes to saving on lighting energy: the reason Berlin or Frankfurt are darker cities than London or Birmingham is not because the Germans stop work earlier or enjoy dim places: it’s just that they’re far more sensible about how they use their energy.
Lighting accounts for about 20 per cent of energy in the average office. Turning off the lights at night — or reducing their glow to a minimum — saves energy and lowers bills. But take a good look around: the actual working area of an office usually represents well under half of the total floor space. And even in the working areas, not everyone is present all the time.
One calculation by office designers bdp (bdp.com) is that approximately 70 sq m of the UK office space is lit up unnecessarily, at a cost of £300 million a year. If that energy wasn’t used for needless lighting, offices could prevent about 1.8 million tonnes of CO2 going into the atmosphere and make a big contribution to emissions reduction targets.
The Carbon Trust (carbontrust.co.uk), which gives interest-free loans to companies intent on energy savings, has information on how to cut back on lighting. Using energy-efficient bulbs is important but other simple adjustments can result in substantial savings: fitting motion or occupancy detectors to turn lights off and on in infrequently used spaces and cleaning light fittings regularly can make a considerable impact. Carrying out a carbon audit is a good starting point too.
In daylight hours more should be done about maximising natural light: it is criminal that offices are still being built with little or no regard to using the Sun to help to brighten them up. Equipment that can regulate lighting, dependent on the degree of natural light, is available.
Besides lighting, there’s the energy that often goes on the wasteful use of air conditioning, the sheaves of waste paper and the computers left on round the clock. A single computer and monitor left on 24 hours a day can run up an energy bill of £45 a year: switch it off out of hours or put it on standby and the bill could be reduced to £10 a year — little adjustments can make a big difference.
Send your eco-dilemmas to
greenandconfused@thetimes.co.uk