Wake up and smell the carbon
The Stern Report is arguably the most important wake-up call for the planet since World War II. It completely destroys Bush's argument that tackling climate change cannot be afforded (anyway an absurd claim for the US ever to make). This, the most comprehensive and authoritative report on the subject ever produced, demonstrates that the costs of not taking action are up to 20 times greater than the costs of taking preventative action now.
But the grand Blair-Brown rhetoric over Stern needs to be matched by action on the ground. At present it isn't.
Stopping global warming means switching out of fossil fuels to renewable sources of energy. On that we have almost the worst record in Europe - 4% generation of electricity from renewables in the UK, compared with an averages of 25% in the EU.
Stern says we should spend 1% of GNP on countering climate change. For the UK that would be £12bn a year. Yet the UK's actual expenditure on its low carbon buildings programme is just £80m a year - less than 1% of the 1% we should be spending.
We should be requiring all large and medium sized companies to report annually on their environmental impacts. This was going to be part of government legislation this year, but Gordon Brown ditched it.
We should be allocating a carbon ration for each family in the country so that all individuals can make their contribution to lowering emissions.
We should be sending a message that gas-guzzling cars are out. Gordon Brown increased the car tax on SUVs this year by less than £1 a week, on a car costing tens of thousands of pounds. This is laughable - how about an increase of £20 a week or more?
The government should set a clear specific target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the UK by 3% a year, as the only way to reach the agreed reduction of at least 60% by 2050.