Chinese walker

Here`s the paradox: if the scientists are right, we`re living through the biggest thing that`s happened since human civilisation emerged. One species, ours, has by itself in the course of a couple of generations managed to powerfully raise the temperature of an entire planet, to knock its most basic systems out of kilter.

But oddly, though we know about it, we don`t know about it. It hasn`t registered in our gut; it isn`t part of our culture. Where are the books? The poems? The plays? The goddamn operas? Compare it to, say, the horror of HIV/Aids in the last two decades, which has produced a staggering outpouring of art that, in turn, has had real political effect. I mean, when people someday look back on our moment, the single most significant item will doubtless be the sudden spiking temperature. But they`ll have a hell of a time figuring out what it meant to us.

Why is that? Well, some of the reasons are obvious. It`s way too big, for one. When something is happening everywhere all at once, it threatens constantly to become backdrop, context, instead of event. And in this case, since the context is the natural world that more and more of us have forgotten how to read, the changes seem small.

At my latitude, spring comes a week earlier than it did in 1970. The ice on the lake melts, and the snow in the fields; and the fields commence to drying out, which has real implications later in the season. That`s an almost inconceivably huge change in a basic physical system over a short stretch of time – but not quite big enough to be noticeable, unless you`re paying attention with, say, the vigilance of a farmer. In a society that has more prison inmates than farmers, that`s unlikely.

Conversely, when global warming does attempt to show its teeth, the immediate event is usually overdramatic, so vast that the event itself grabs all the attention, leaving none behind for the motive cause. Four hurricanes sweep across Florida in a summer, which is just the kind of result computer modelling says is becoming more likely. But who has time for computer modelling and carbon when there is Storm Surge and Blown-Over Mobile Home and Waiting in Line for Ice, all of which are a lot easier to take pictures of.

And the dramatis personae are deficient as well, being us. Too many villains can mar a plot as easily as too few, and “starring everyone with a car” is a large cast indeed. We don`t much want to be told that we`re the problem, primarily because it implies we would have to change some of our ways. In a consumer society, those habits constitute a large part of our identity, not to mention our net worth; once you`ve got your plasma screen installed in the recreation room of the 3,500-square-foot house, this is an epic you can do without.

Especially since there`s no real chance of a happy ending. We can do better, or we can certainly do much worse – but we`ve already pushed the carbon concentration past the point where the atmosphere can easily heal itself. So far we`ve increased the world`s temperature by about one degree Fahrenheit; the best guess is we`ve stoked the fires enough that another two degrees are essentially inevitable. Past that, what we do now matters deeply. But the difference between miserable and catastrophic is not a compelling dramatic device.

The two large-scale attempts to achieve mythic status for climate change thus far – the movie The Day After Tomorrow and Michael Crichton`s State of Fear – prove most of these rules. To dramatise the first story, the producers postulated a series of physically bizarre and silly events: global warming somehow leads to a kind of flash-freezing, with supercyclonic storms ripping chilled air from the stratosphere and forcing it down on midtown Manhattan. Oh, and watch out for the wolf escaped from the zoo. Crichton, meanwhile, postulates environmental-spawned tsunamis and cannibal kings in order to prove the whole thing a fable.

In the face of all this, how to proceed? If we can`t turn to creative artists, then to documentarians. Their impulse is to gather more evidence so that people will listen and do something; hence the photographers descending on Tuvalu to watch for rising waves and the writers heading north to interview the Inuit. It`s all remarkable stuff – the news that communities in the far north were hearing thunder for the first time in their histories shook me. But it`s also news about people who, almost by definition, are marginal to those of us in the developed world. The question is how to unsettle the audience.

The possibility exists, I think – in part because events get steadily more obvious. The western European heatwave that killed tens of thousands in August 2003 is a good example. Its toll was horrifying precisely because they were not Ghanaians or Bengalis, people who we have become used to blithely and guiltily reading about dying by the thousand. These were people who could easily have been us, with magazine subscriptions and cable TV and the expectation that nature was not going to do them in – that they`d progressed to a point where they were beyond nature`s real reach.

Not only that, but the deaths illustrated another crucial point. The breakdown in human community, the rise of a kind of hyper-individualism perfectly symbolised by the automobile, was both the motive and immediate cause of many of the fatalities. Old people baked to death in their apartments because the temperature got higher than it had ever gotten before (and barely cooled at night); and they baked to death in their apartments because the social structure that always protected each of us from such events had broken down. I mean, nobody was checking up on them. It`s hard to imagine more symbolic casualties, and easy to imagine the play, the novel, that should keep that fortnight near the front of our minds.

But what emotions should the playwright play with? Fear? Guilt? Sure, but not only those. For me, a kind of wistfulness has always been at the core of my reaction to global warming, a sense that as a species we`re finally and irrevocably managing to crowd out everything else, smudge our fingerprints on every frame of the book of life. There seems to me no more telling turn in our civilisation, at least since the apple in Eden (a crisis that gave rise to more great art than anything in the western tradition).

But there also needs to be hope as well – visions of what it might feel like to live on a planet where somehow we use this moment as an opportunity to confront our consumer society, use it to begin the process of rebuilding community. They don`t have to be romantic visions, though a little romance wouldn`t hurt.

We are all actors in this drama, more of us at every moment. The great subplot of these few years involves the introduction of Indians and Chinese as principal players, a fascinating confrontation between old privilege and new assertion. It may well be that because no one stands outside the scene, no one has the distance to make art from it. But we`ve got to try. Art, like religion, is one of the ways we digest what is happening to us, make the sense out of it that proceeds to action.

Otherwise, the only role left to us – noble, but also enraging in its impotence – is simply to pay witness. The world is never going to be, in human time, more intact than it is at this moment. Therefore it falls to those of us alive now to watch and record its flora, its fauna, its rains, its snow, its ice, its peoples. To document the buzzing, glorious, cruel, mysterious planet we were born on to, before in our carelessness we leave it far less sweet.

Time rushes on, in ways that humans have never before contemplated. That famous picture of the earth from outer space that Apollo beamed back in the late 1960s – already that`s not the world we inhabit; its poles are melting, its oceans rising. We can register what is happening with satellites and scientific instruments, but can we register it in our imaginations, the most sensitive of all our devices?

The author: Bill McKibben is a writer and journalist. His books include The End of Nature (1989), Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age (2004) and Wandering Home (2005).

- The effects of climate change are likely to lead to the displacement of peoples from coastline and river delta areas, severe natural disasters and increasing food shortages. This would lead to increased human suffering, greater social unrest, revised patterns of living and the pressure of greatly increased levels of migration across the world.

- This has long-term security implications for all countries which are far more serious, lasting and destructive than those of international terrorism.

- However, the response to climate change should not be the increased use of nuclear power, which would only encourage the spread across an unstable world of technology and materials that can also be used in the development of nuclear weapons and their use by %26lsquo;rogue states` or terrorist networks.

- Instead, a more secure and reliable response is the development of local renewable energy sources and radical energy conservation practices.

The Pentagon`s Office of Net Assessment (ONA) identifies climate change as a threat which vastly eclipses that of terrorism. A report commissioned by the head of the ONA, Pentagon insider Andrew Marshall, and published in late 2003, concluded that climate change over the next 20 years could result in a global catastrophe costing millions of lives in wars and natural disasters. The authors argue that the risk of abrupt climate change should be “elevated beyond a scientific debate to a US national security concern”.

Anyone doubting the serious security implications of environmental disasters, even for rich and powerful countries such as the United States, should simply look at the large-scale loss of life and social breakdown in New Orleans and other Gulf Coast cities (as well as rising petrol prices across the world) following Hurricane Katrina in August and September 2005. This is especially worrying because there has been a near doubling in the number of category 4 and 5 storms such as Katrina in the last 35 years, most likely as a result of rises in the temperature of the surface levels of the sea.

The Social Impacts of Climate Change

In January 2004, the UK Government`s Chief Scientific Adviser, Sir David King, wrote a guest editorial for the journal Science, warning that “climate change is the most severe problem that we are facing today, more serious even than the threat of terrorism”. He argues that as a result of global warming “millions more people around the world may in future be exposed to the risk of hunger, drought, flooding, and debilitating diseases such as malaria”.

Most scientists now believe there has been a considerable increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, mainly as a result of human activity such as burning fossil fuels and the cutting down of the world`s forests, which has led to a large-scale loss of biodiversity and a global average temperature increase. Studies differ, but models are predicting a future temperature rise of 1.5 to 5 degrees Centigrade by the year 2100. This could cause thermal expansion of the sea and global ice melting, resulting in an alarming rise in sea levels and a significant redrawing of the world map.

Among the many consequences are the effects on metropolitan areas. As most of the world`s large cities are positioned on coasts it could mean many of them would be lost to the sea. The gradual displacement of peoples from coastline and river delta areas could number in the hundreds of millions with disastrous economic and social consequences.

Furthermore, climate change is likely to involve elements of %26lsquo;positive feedback` in that it will encourage further environmental changes that will lead to an acceleration of carbon emissions. The melting of Arctic sea ice may result in more open water during Arctic summers which will absorb more solar radiation, speeding up the process of ice melting. A second possibility is that the progressive melting of Arctic and near-Arctic permafrost will release large volumes of methane from rotting vegetation which is, itself, an even more potent cause of climate change than carbon dioxide. Losing the sea ice of the Arctic is likely to cause dramatic changes in the climate of the northern region and will have a very big impact on other climate parameters.

There are also indications that over the next fifty years there will be considerable shifts in the distribution of rainfall, with more rain tending to fall on the oceans and polar regions and progressively less falling on the tropical land masses. The tropics support a substantial part of the human population, much of it surviving by subsistence agriculture. A shift in rainfall distribution is likely to cause a partial drying-out of some of the most fertile regions of the tropics, resulting in a significant reduction in the ecological carrying-capacity of the land and decreases in food production. China and India, in particular, could be hugely affected, with profound national and regional implications. Many of the countries in this region would have very little capacity to respond to such changes, and the resulting persistent food shortages and even famines would lead to increased suffering, greater social unrest and greatly increased migration.

While Africa will be most affected by drought and desertification, researchers are also reporting a general drying out of the land and spread of desertification in the Mediterranean region. One of the worst droughts on record hit Spain and Portugal in 2005 and halved some crop yields, causing both countries to apply to the European Union for food assistance. Droughts have also badly affected crops in Australia, and one in six countries in the world face food shortages because of severe droughts that could become semi-permanent. In fact, new climate prediction research by the UK Meteorological Office indicates that expected shifts in rain patterns and temperatures over the next 50 years threaten to put far more people at risk of hunger than previously thought.

That is, unless carbon dioxide levels can be stabilised and the threat of global warming and climate change taken seriously. Time is of the essence. The average temperature of the earth`s surface has risen by 0.6 degrees Centigrade since reliable records began in the late 1800s. The European Union believes that the eventual rise in the global average temperature must be kept to within two degrees Centigrade of pre-industrial levels to ensure the continued safety of the world`s human population. However, some leading climate scientists suggest that if the concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere exceeds 400 parts per million (ppm), then there will be little hope of achieving this goal. The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is currently 378 ppm, and is increasing by about 1.5 ppm per year. If the scientists are correct, that leaves just 14 years before the 400 ppm point is reached and, in fact, some of the early effects of global warming are already apparent. In 2004, for example, the World Health Organisation estimated that current mortality attributable to man-made climate change was at least 150,000 people per year – with the highest proportion of these deaths occurring in Southern Africa (see map).

While some governments are taking this threat reasonably seriously, the reaction from the USA has been unhelpful; withdrawing from the Kyoto Protocol was their best known response to what some in the Bush administration still consider the %26lsquo;myth` of climate change. Even though it accounts for only 4% of the world`s population, America is the world`s greatest polluter – producing 20% of the global emissions of greenhouse gases. As the world`s only superpower, the United States must face up to its responsibility to take the threat of climate change seriously. It is also important that China and India, as two of the largest developing countries who have not signed up to the Kyoto Protocol, be brought into greater dialogue on the issue. China has the second highest carbon dioxide emissions behind the USA, with a rapidly developing economy and increasingly high levels of energy use, especially from coal-fired power stations. In the next 20 years China looks set to overtake the USA as the world`s biggest producer of greenhouse gases.

Nuclear is not the Answer

However, the response to global warming should not, as some suggest, be the increased use of nuclear power. Some environmentalists are now promoting nuclear energy as the environmentally sound solution rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide.

Aside from the obvious environmental, economic and safety issues associated with radioactive waste, there is a very serious global security issue.

This %26lsquo;nuclear renaissance` will involve the development of facilities – reactors, waste tanks and reprocessing plants – that are potential terrorist targets, as well as encouraging the spread of technology and materials that can be used in the development of nuclear weapons by %26lsquo;rogue states` or terrorist networks. The peaceful atom and the military atom are what the Swedish physicist Hannes Alven, a Nobel Prize laureate, called “Siamese twins”. Civil nuclear activity and nuclear weapons proliferation are intimately linked: one of the %26lsquo;twins` cannot be promoted without the other spreading out of control. This is where much of the current concern over Iran`s nuclear programme comes from, but it is important to note that the development of nuclear power in other countries – for example, China, the USA or Japan – is just as worrying in terms of global security.

There are serious dangers associated with producing plutonium in large quantities for civil use in conditions of increasing world unrest. In particular, the potential use of plutonium in a terrorist weapon – a radiological dispersal device (so-called %26lsquo;dirty bomb`) or a crude nuclear weapon – would have a devastating impact if detonated, for example, in a capital city, but also if the threat of detonation were used to blackmail a government. The problem of safeguarding society against these hazards would become formidable in a %26lsquo;plutonium economy` (that is, an economy significantly dependent on nuclear reactors using mixed oxide fuel and/or plutonium to meet its energy demands). The security measures that might become necessary could seriously affect personal freedoms and have genuine consequences for civil rights.

Nuclear energy is not a carbon free technology. Electricity is used in many stages of the nuclear cycle – from building reactors to waste disposal and decommissioning – and this electricity will mainly have been produced from fossil fuels. Even under the most favourable conditions, the nuclear cycle will produce approximately one-third as much CO2 emission as gas-fired electricity production. Furthermore, nuclear power could only supply the entire world electricity demand for three years before sources with low uranium content would have to be mined. Given that one of the main factors is the amount of carbon dioxide produced by the mining and milling or uranium ore, the use of the poorer ores in nuclear reactors would produce more CO2 emission than burning fossil fuels directly, and may actually consume more electricity than it produces. Furthermore, the problems of the depletion of uranium mineable at economic prices would become as serious as the depletion of oil and gas if a significant nuclear renaissance were to occur.

Therefore, while some may argue that nuclear energy could provide a %26lsquo;solution` to climate change, the implications of such developments would be disastrous. In fact, the UK Government`s own advisory body, the Sustainable Development Commission, concluded in March 2006 that nuclear power was dangerous, expensive and unnecessary. The House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee reached similar conclusions the following month, raising serious concerns relating to safety, the threat of terrorism, and the proliferation of nuclear power across the world. So, rather than constructing new nuclear reactors, attention should be focused on the protection and security of existing facilities and options for phasing out their use altogether. This, combined with an accelerated implementation by the nuclear weapon states of their “unequivocal commitment” to nuclear disarmament under Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the negotiation of a Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty (FMCT) to ban the further production of fissile materials for use in nuclear weapons, and the development of policies designed to increase confidence in the nuclear non-proliferation regime, would go a long way to making the world a safer place.

Renewable Energy

China is poised to present the world with some of its greatest opportunities – as well as some of its greatest challenges – in the years ahead. The planet`s most populous country is now home to 1.3 billion people. It is also home to a rapidly developing economy that is fast becoming a major global player. The spectacular rise of China has lifted millions out of poverty. It has also alarmed many of its neighbours and competitors and prompted the question, “Is China a threat or an opportunity?” Its rapid development has come at a heavy environmental cost.

The Chinese government acknowledges China`s environmental crisis. In a 2005 interview, Pan Yue, vice minister of the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA), the government agency with responsibility for the environment, said: “This [economic] miracle will end soon because the environment can no longer keep pace%26hellip;Acid rain is falling on one-third of our territory, half of the water in China`s seven largest rivers is completely useless; a quarter of our citizens do not have access to clean drinking water; a third of the urban population is breathing polluted air; less than a fifth of the rubbish in cities is treated and processed in an environmentally sustainable manner.”

China`s need for energy and water to feed continuing urbanisation and industrialisation will only exacerbate this crisis if solutions are not found. However, the country`s environmental problems are of concern not only to China; they affect everybody in the world, directly and indirectly. As China expands its search for energy and minerals, timber and other raw materials across the world, the environmental impact becomes a global issue. According to the Washington-based Worldwatch Institute, China used 26% of the world`s crude steel in 2005, 32% of the rice, 37% of the cotton and 47% of the cement. While some of those materials are going into exported products, a good deal is going into building a Chinese infrastructure that is transforming the country`s landscape. And as China`s carbon emissions rise, the common problem of global climate change is affected.

Since the late 1970s, the country has moved from a centrally planned system to a more market-oriented one, with a burgeoning private sector. China`s economic restructuring, with its accompanying gains in efficiency, have led to a huge leap – more than tenfold — in gross domestic product (GDP) since 1978. Measured in purchasing power, then, China has become the second-largest economy in the world, after the United States. In per-capita terms, however, it is still lower middle-income, with large income disparities between regions and 150 million people falling below international poverty lines. The Chinese government has struggled to cope with both the consequences of past environmental policies and the challenges of the current economic transformation. With China`s growing national wealth, its rapid urbanisation and its economic weight in the world comes new responsibility regarding a tidal wave of environmental issues – issues of environmental protection, conservation of resources, power-generating capacity, fossil-fuel use and much more, which need to be urgently addressed.

Today, environmental issues are confronting every country in the world, large and small, powerful and weak. For China, with its huge population, colossal energy needs, growth in consumerism, expanding industrialisation and, soon, the 2008 Summer Olympic Games taking place in its capital, Beijing, the demands on its environment will be staggering. How will the country cope? And how will China work to ensure that it does no harm to places — and resources — outside its national borders?

Along with having the second-largest economy on the planet, China is the world`s second-largest emitter of carbon dioxide (CO%26sup2;), one of the major greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming. Although China has ratified both the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and its 1997 Kyoto Protocol, as a developing country it is not legally bound to any emissions-limiting or emissions-reduction targets. Nor, notes the UN Environment Programme`s Global Environment Outlook 2006, have any targets been set under the 2005 Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate, which encompasses China and two of its regional, developing neighbours – India and South Korea – along with the US, Japan and Australia. (India and Japan are the fourth and fifth largest CO%26sup2; emitters, with Russia in third place.) The partnership, however, aims to develop and utilise emerging cleaner technologies and practices, including renewable energy systems.

In 1990, according to UNEP figures, the Asia-Pacific region produced 435 million tonnes (8%) more CO%26sup2; than did North America. By 2002, the disparity was 2.6 million tonnes (41% more). Figures cited by the Worldwatch Institute show China emitting one billion tons of carbon dioxide annually, or 14% of the world total (still only one-seventh of the level of the US, the world`s largest emitter). Pressure on China to limit its greenhouse-gas emissions, post-Kyoto, is mounting, both internationally and internally. The Chinese government is well aware that China is vulnerable, on many fronts, to the effects of climate change: rising sea levels, violent weather fluctuations, desertification, loss of habitat and biodiversity, health issues, and more.

San Francisco-based Pacific Environment, one of the organisations supporting China`s emerging environmental movement, says that “China`s contribution to global warming will impact the environment of every nation on earth.” Indeed, it adds, the country`s management of its environmental problems will have significant global repercussions. “The inability of China`s farmers to eke out a crop from drying land will force it to turn to the world food market, further intensifying the stresses on land in grain-producing countries like the US and Canada. And China`s consumption of over a third of the global fish harvest, a number that is certain to grow, is placing severe strain on our already overtaxed oceans. Simply put, anyone concerned about the global environment must be concerned about the capacity of China`s people to deal with the pressing threats they face.”

The last two hundred years have seen many shocks for China. The world`s biggest economic power at the beginning of the 19th Century, with an economic aggregate at 33% of the world`s total, China quickly declined to only 5% by the mid 20th century. The decline was not arrested until 1950 and industrialisation and modernisation began from a very low economic level. From 1978, China`s economy began to take off, generating the biggest economic miracle in human history and achieving record breaking growth and poverty reduction. Today, China is already the world`s second largest power in terms of comprehensive national power and, according to PPP (purchasing power parity) calculation, is now second only to the United States and predicted by the OECD to overtake the US by 2030, thus becoming the world`s biggest economic power again (See Table 1). For China, national reinvigoration is no longer a dream. The rise of China is a living reality.

The rise of China has aroused great concern throughout the world. Most people in the world hold that China`s development will make a positive contribution. But some also claim that China`s growth is a threat. I think the rise of China will provide the world with opportunities rather than threats and that the whole world will benefit from China`s development. In fact, over the past 20 years, China has already made a tremendous contribution to global growth and poverty reduction. China`s future development will mean a greater contribution still. But the prerequisite is that China`s growth must be grounded in its true national conditions and follow the right development path. I think that China should rise both peacefully and along the path of green development. Only by sticking to a green development strategy and shifting the growth model to a green development path, is it possible for China to realise its historic rise. Table 1 Proportion of China`s GDP in the World`s Total

Source：Angus Maddison, The World Economy: A Millennial Perspective, OECD: Paris, 2001

China`s resources, environment and the loss of natural assets

China abounds in natural resources. But on a per capita basis, it is a resource poor country. According to the World Bank`s 1997 evaluation, among the big countries whose data are available, China`s natural capital was next only to the United States and India. But on a per capita basis, it ranks at only 2670 US dollars, slightly higher than Japan (2300 dollars), 68% that of India, 64% that of Germany, 54% that of Britain, 33% that of France, 16% that of the United States, and 7% that of Australia. China`s agricultural land is 75% of its natural capital, second to India in total value; energy and mineral resources are 16% , with a total value next only to the United States. These two items together form the main part of China`s natural capital. But environmental natural resources are scarce. The value of forest resources, timber, pasture and protected zones in the United States is respectively, 2.7 times, 4.5 times, 5.4 times and 10.8 times that of China. (See Table 2)

China has big natural capital reserves but it is a small country on a per capita basis and the quality of its capital is poor. The contradiction between population and resources has always been significant in China`s productivity and economic development.

Table2 Natural Capital in Different Countries（1994）

Green development is the inevitable path

The traditional development strategies of industrialised countries all present two distinct features whether in Europe, the United States or Japan, despite their differing national and development conditions. One is that high-speed growth is sustained by high consumption of resources (especially non-renewable resources); the other is that the high-speed growth is stimulated by high consumption of the means of subsistence. We call this a traditional development model. In view of China`s conditions, it is impossible for China to realise modernisation by following the traditional model. The six principal reasons are:

Climate change will affect China, and China will affect climate change.

Let me start with a few statements to indicate where I am coming from.

First, the theory and evidence that I have seen all seems to strongly suggest that human-related emissions of carbon into the atmosphere is causing, and will in the future cause, significant global warming.

Second, this global warming is on such a scale that it will wreak havoc on both poor and rich countries. It could even make large sections of the earth uninhabitable.

Third, the costs of abatement are large.

Therefore the decision to curtail emissions is a very serious one and it is clear that these decisions will also cause hardship in poor and in rich countries.

Fourth, despite these high costs, the time has passed that policy makers should still be acting on the null hypothesis that global warming will not occur.

Choice of null

Here I come to the first use of economics. It turns out that this point is central to current US policy. As I see it, current US policy is that the Federal Government should do continued research to ascertain the extent of global warming and its future path and the policy tree is to take future action only if the findings of this research are sufficiently conclusive.

In terms of fundraising, the main Western environmental groups have kept pace with increasingly sophisticated marketing techniques. In terms of campaigning, however, we are stuck in a 1970s world of slogans, stunts, posters, placards and banners. There is little understanding of the audience`s frame of mind, and no really tangible communications objectives. The green movement in Europe has become effective only at talking to itself.

This may sound a little harsh. After all, there has been a steadily growing media interest in climate change. That`s true, but too easy a measure. Awareness of climate change isn`t the objective: people may know and still do nothing. So what should we do differently? I have three suggestions.

1. Don`t debate the science

Everybody knows that greens love getting into a good debate. It`s not surprising – there`s a powerful scientific, moral and commonsense case to be made for taking action. Unfortunately, those with a vested interest in doing nothing are too shrewd. In the United States especially, they have successfully entangled environmental change campaigners in detailed debates about the validity of the science.

It`s a simple strategy: the likes of Exxon throw money at some financially compliant scientists, who produce a report with the appearance of credibility and objectivity. The greens, of course, leap to an enthusiastic defense of their case – and the trap is sprung: the public tunes out (too boring), the media downgrade the story (too complex) and the politicians have the greatest excuse for doing nothing (let`s wait until the science is clear).

It`s entirely right to set out the case, of course – but the time has come to have confidence in the scientific consensus around climate change, and to stop debating the science. We urgently need to move the conversation from “is it really happening?” to “what do we do about it?”

2. Stop talking about the environment

Buried around page seven of your newspaper, you might find the occasional story about climate change, along the lines of “Global warming: bad news for polar bears”. Personally, I find this little short of infuriating: it`s counter-productive, yet this kind of story forms the bulk of green communications on climate change.

So what`s the problem? After all, people do care about the environment, don`t they? Indeed, there are plenty of surveys which report that as many as 92% of people care about the environment. Unfortunately, this means very little: ask anyone if they care about the environment, and they`re unlikely to say no. Environmentalists find it difficult to accept that most people simply don`t care about the environment as much as they do.

The problem is this: the steady stream of stories about polar bears and the like has a negative effect: it causes people to think of climate change as a purely environmental issue. Of course, it isn`t: climate change presents serious economic, political and health risks.

Communications around climate change should focus on non-environmental impacts. Let`s face it, there are plenty to choose from: widespread crop failures, outbreaks of disease, the threat of conflict over water, and the increased likelihood of tsunami-like disasters in places like Bangladesh, to name a few.

But here again we need to be careful. If the scale of the impacts we describe is too overwhelming, people will disengage: it seems too big, too uncontrollable, like the threat of sudden annihilation by a giant rogue asteroid. Also, if the impacts are too remote – distant famines, for example – people file it mentally under good causes.

Climate change is more than a “good cause”. If we want people to respond emotionally, practically and urgently to climate change, then we need to present impacts that are both tangible and relevant to their lives. In the UK, we might think of this as “the Daily Mail strategy”: link every story to readers` material wellbeing. So, we move from “climate change is bad news for polar bears” to “climate change may affect your house prices”.

Some may describe this as cynical. In advertising, we think of it as understanding your target audience. Of course, we would all like to believe in the better nature of our own species – but can we afford to rely on an appeal to people`s altruism? After all, we all know where charity begins.

The same logic applies to both consumers at large and the business community. We must move climate change out of the Corporate Social Responsibility box and into the CEO`s in-tray. We need to present this as a serious risk to business as usual: smart, responsible business leaders are taking climate change seriously, because they see it as a strategic issue, not a PR issue.

3. Set clear objectives

It`s sometimes quite tricky to work out exactly what the environmental movement wants to be done about climate change. For those interested to listen, there is a cacophony of messages about what should be done: families should downsize their cars; industry should become “carbon neutral”; kettles should be quarter-filled; investors should back sustainable energy; governments should sign Kyoto; everyone should buy halogen light-bulbs; businessmen should fly a little less – and when they fly, they should plant trees in penance.

It’s understandable, of course. The environmental movement consists of many different constituencies, each working hard to address their own particular areas of concern. Even within a single organisation, different campaign groups may communicate with the public on different issues at the same time.

Even if we are successful in presenting climate change as a real and urgent problem, we are failing to present clear solutions. Climate change campaigners are, of course, painfully aware that there are no easy answers. There’s no quick fix to climate change. However, if progress is to be made, we must be more strategic in the way we communicate solutions.

At the most straightforward level, this means we should always ask two simple questions each time we communicate with the public: who exactly are we communicating with, and what exactly do we want them to do? This may sound blindingly obvious – but there’s little evidence that these questions are being routinely asked.

Ultimately, however, something a little more radical is needed. The scale of climate change as a problem, and the complexity of its solutions, demands that the environmental movement speaks with one voice on this issue. At the very least, the high-profile campaign groups need a coordinated approach. We need to pick our battles with more care, uniting behind a coherent campaign strategy – with carefully chosen targets and clear communications objectives.

The management gurus will tell you that strategy is about deciding what not to do. Communications strategy is no different: for us, it may mean deciding not to talk to a mass audience about polar bears (or halogen bulbs, or half-filling the kettle) but to communicate instead on the solutions that will have highest impact – such as building pressure on the United States to get behind Kyoto.

If the environmental movement were able to speak with one clear, consistent voice, and to present clear, feasible solutions, then we may have a better chance of making some real progress. If our communications remain fragmented and with no clear strategic direction, then I fear we are fighting a losing battle.

Jon Miller is a planner at Ogilvy %26amp; Mather, currently working on Coca Cola in China.

If a nation is to develop, particularly in this increasingly globalised world, it needs energy – energy to power its factories, supply its construction industries, light its buildings, heat and air-condition its homes and workplaces, run its transportation systems, and produce its food and clothing.

China, with its booming economy and increasing national wealth, is (like its neighbour India) not immune to the environmental consequences of its development, however. The doubling of its gross domestic product (GDP) since 1995 (from about US $500 billion in 1995 to $1.1 trillion in 2005) has produced a concomitant increase in carbon emissions, from roughly 800 million metric tons in 1995 to more than 1.2 billion metric tons in 2005. China has a great deal of growing to do yet, however, and 150 million Chinese people are still living in poverty – and using very little energy.