Posts Tagged: climate change

A climate milestone, highest in human history, a ‘mayday’ call by the planet. However it’s portrayed, it’s a disheartening fact that on 9 May the concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the Earth’s atmosphere, as measured by an observatory in Hawaii, topped the symbolically important level of 400 parts per million (400ppm). So what’s the [...]

There are plenty of loud voices trying to make politicians believe that airport expansion in the South East is what we need to lift the UK out of recession. But is this simply wishful thinking? How much evidence is there that simply building more runways, so that more flights can go to more places, will [...]

My latest blog at the Huffington Post is about the recent encouraging signs coming from the US that the Obama administration might (just might) finally be planning some serious action to lead the world in tackling climate change. Now we just need David Cameron to live up to his own promises on the subject… “Barack [...]

It’s a technology that might be able to safely remove and store harmful carbon emissions from coal and gas-fired power stations. According to some studies it could create 13,000 new jobs in Scotland by 2020. However, some five years after the UK government first launched its £1 billion funding competition, aimed at helping kick-start the [...]

‘Even doubling our current rate of decarbonisation, would still lead to emissions consistent with 6 degrees of warming by the end of the century’.  PwC. ‘The world has failed to meet its target to achieve a significant reduction in the rate of biodiversity loss’.  Convention on Biological Diversity. Optimisation is clearly failing.  We need to [...]

Think new “I can’t understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I’m frightened of the old ones” – these words, from composer John Cage, ring especially true to me when considering the gulf between businesses that are glued to outmoded approaches, and others that are breaking in new, innovative models. It’s a topic WWF [...]

Playing a part in a safe, secure and affordable energy system will give an energy company a social licence to operate. But what does such an energy system look like? Well, first let’s look at what it doesn’t look like. Many energy scenarios paint a bleak picture of climate change – with carbon emissions reaching [...]

There’s a big push this week to promote investment in the shift to a green economy, to get the UK on the road to economic recovery. Our new report, ‘Building green economies’, shows why this is essential and how it can be done. Recent analysis has shown the growing importance of low-carbon and environmental industries [...]

Nadia Bood’s laugh is infectious – and she laughs a lot. A very important character trait, I think, considering the sometimes overwhelmingly depressing topic of her work. She’s helping tackle the impacts of climate change in Belize, Central America. I was in Belize in the second half of June 2012 to help evaluate WWF-Belize’s Coastal [...]

On Sunday night WWF, along with the international development charity Tearfund and the progressive Conservative action group Bright Blue, sponsored an event looking at how the Conservative Party, in its own unique way, ideologically tackles climate change. We had a varied panel including think-tanks, the former chair of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change, Sir [...]