The Green List

A green supplement in the Guardian recently, The Green List, gave an interesting round up of global environmental developments this year. I thought it would be good to talk about this now, as we near the end of the year, to see how much more needs to be done in 2008.

Here are some of the highlights. In March, the UK Government published its draft climate change bill. In June, the G8 summit was hosted by Germany. The US finally agreed to "seriously consider" a 50 % cut in carbon emissions by 2050, but with the caveat that their involvement relies on India and China also joining the party. In July, the House of Commons, environmental audit report for 2006-07 said that the UK 2050 target is incoherent, as a cut in UK carbon emissions by 60% by 2050 is unlikely to achieve the Governments other goal, of limiting global warming to a rise of 2C. In August, the Government awarded more than £1million to projects approved by the carbon trust. At the Labour Party Conference in September, Brown said that Britain will become the first country in the world to write binding limits on carbon emissions into law. In October, Al Gore and the IPCC shared a Nobel Peace Prize. And in December, the UN Climate Change Conference will be hosted by the Government of Indonesia in the island of Bali.

What is clear in all of the legislation and discussions this year, is that although progress is being made, it needs to be done more quickly and more radically - because unfortunately the risks poised by global climate change itself, will not wait for all the bureaucracy to be straightened out.