On Monday evening I went to a presentation by BBC Journalist Nick Rose, who had visited Bangladesh to see two of the Ashden Sustainable Energy Award winners.

The winning projects are on the front-line of climate change having to cope with the ever constant and menacing threat of flooding. Behind both projects were people who had torn-up the conventional way of doing business and had created initiatives that had adapted to the new threat. 

One was an architect who had used his skills to create huge boats armed with an array of solar panels. The boats are able to reach remote communities. Once they have arrived the solar panels enable farmers to set up video links to discuss shared concerns with other farmers up-river, they provide internet access for floating school classes and they enable medical help to reach those in need. 

Simple, ingenious and effective they demonstrate that the people of Bangladesh are already adapting to a changing climate. I have a feeling that many more people in other countries are also going to have to come up with similar ingenuity over the coming years.

Politics

The political momentum is building in the run-up to Copenhagen. A number of trends seem to be emerging. The first is I sense that there is an encouraging political momentum behind the need to act. This is reflected in both the fact that an increasing number of world leaders are attending Copenhagen and that a number of countries such as China and Brazil are unilaterally making specific commitments on carbon targets. 

The second is that despite this momentum the chances of there being a signed agreement at the end of this round of negotiations seems to be receding as the enormous complexity and diversity of opinions become ever more apparent. A date has already been pencilled in for a rapid follow-up to get something signed.

Thirdly, in response to the increased profile of the issue, the climate sceptics are becoming more vocal. Fuelled by the leaked emails from UEA; Nigel Lawson, the Daily Mail and the Liberal Party in Australia are starting to once again question the science. Most galling is the fact that the delightful BNP Leader Nick Griffin will be representing the European Parliament determined to expose ‘the somewhat dodgy science behind the climate change movement’, stating it is ‘a global Marxist mantra that is going to be used to beat people around the head, tax us, smash nations and impose a one-world government’.   Enlightened politics at its best.

What is disappointing is how poor the scientific community has been at rebutting the attacks. I think there are two reasons for this. One is that some of the scientists are starting to regret the emotional language they have used in order to articulate their concerns. The second is that scientists have been traditionally poor communicators and not good at responding with a collective voice to fast-moving, political stories. 

This lack of response is damaging to the debate. Despite the UEA emails, the level of scientific consensus is solid and, if anything, is strengthening as more evidence emerges. We desperately need the IPCC to stand-up to explain how it works and to give the public a much clearer analysis of the issue.

Community leaders

The last two Saturday mornings I have hauled myself out of bed early to introduce training days that we've run for EcoTeam leaders and for Climate Squad. 

In November we have trained over 200 EcoTeam leaders. These people have given up a day of their free time to learn how they can bring together their friends or neighbours and create local teams who take practical action both individually and collectively to live more sustainably – saving themselves money on their bills into the bargain. 

Over the next two years we aim to train 3,000 EcoTeam leaders and involve 20,000 households in EcoTeams. It is a massively ambitious target but is the scale of activity that we need to achieve to make any significant impact.

Despite the early start, the atmosphere on Saturday was relaxed, friendly and positive. Our staff and trainers have created an engaging, practical and lively training event and I feel confident that their professionalism coupled with the enormous goodwill and vitality of the volunteers will ensure that EcoTeams is massively successful.

Sky partnership

A relationship between an environmental charity and a corporate partner is not always straight-forward. This week The Guardian used a report from Brand Emissions to state that Sky is not ‘walking the talk’ with regard to its carbon emissions. As always the article didn’t tell the whole story, but it does reflect the challenges that a rapidly growing business has in actually cutting emissions. 

Despite the report, I have absolutely no qualms about our relationship with Sky. From my perspective they are committed to open reporting, they have robust plans in place to reduce emissions, the level of commitment from their CEO Jeremy Darroch cannot be doubted, and they are using their enormous reach as a communications business to engage with the wider public. 

Their attitude and commitment is in stark contrast to one of the companies named in the report as a leader. This leader’s carbon cut has been mainly caused by a rapid decrease in the workforce and the leadership response to tougher business circumstances has been to back track rapidly on investment in climate change issues.   

The article does demonstrate how difficult it is to get a clear view of corporate performance, but I am sure it is disheartening for those who are actually making substantial changes to be listed as a laggard.

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