Fiddling while Rome burns: the IPCC's Special Report on Global Warming

摘要

Perhaps we should apologise for returning to the subject of global warming so often in these pages. But then again, perhaps we should not. The subject has such importance for our world today, and that of our children and future generations to come, that other energy issues tend to pale into insignificance alongside it. For that reason, it now plays a leading part in the energy policy-making of numerous countries around the globe. And it is not just the scale of the challenge-the potentially cataclysmic consequences of mismanaging the risks it represents-that gives it its centrality. There is also acute and mounting urgency to the need to find solutions. It is now five minutes to midnight in climate terms. Yet still not enough is being done.