Acclimatising to change

Phil Moore

24th July, 2008

The world at last seems to be waking up to climate change. But are government initiatives being driven by an awareness of environmental priorities or by other means? Phil Moore reports

The United States is in a unique position to address climate change, but the continued fudging over the Kyoto protocol and the US administration’s reluctance to engage with the issue suggest the nature of climate change itself is not a top priority.

Yet the issue seems to have found itself onto the White House agenda by other means. A National Intelligence Assessment statement (the NIC is a centre of strategic thinking within the US government which analyses foreign policy issues) in June considered the ‘implications of global climate change for US national security interests by 2030’.

Prompted by the findings of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC) Fourth Assessment - alongside US based climate research – the NIC concluded: ‘…that the most significant impact for the United States will be indirect and result from climate-driven effects on many other countries and their potential to seriously affect US national security interests.’

It appears that global warming, in itself, is not enough to shake the West Wing. Presented as a problem of national security however, action looks more likely.

Meanwhile in the UK our renewable...

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