editorial Commitment issues

Around the world, in developed and developing countries, there is reluctance to commit to the alleviation of climate change. But investment in clean energy is growing.

Throughout December 2009, the big story was are high because we are quickly running out the United Nations Framework Convention of time to safeguard our future.” on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and its She went on to cite this year’s floods in two-week meeting held in Copenhagen, Pakistan, Venezuela and Colombia, wildfires Denmark. Presidents and popstars descended, in Russia, record hot summers in yet the summit failed to reach the kind and and the plight of island nations of binding international agreement on such as the Maldives that are having to emissions and other climate issues that was consider evacuation procedures in the face noisily demanded by campaigners, and of rising sea-levels. And yet already even the indeed by many national governments. The possibility of managing a 2-degree cap on ‘Copenhagen accord’ stated the aim of keeping rising temperature may be slipping away: a the global average temperature increase at special issue of Philosophical Transactions of no more than 2 degrees — but contained the Royal Society A, published to coincide no commitment to the measures that might with the summit, documents the potential achieve it. for and implications of a 4-degree rise; that Gutiérrez One year on, the UN climate summit rise could occur as soon as 2060 according to S

reconvened, this time in Cancún, Mexico, and the worst-case scenario, and would push the é Lui is entering its final stages asNature Physics population in many areas of the world beyond S goes to press. This year’s summit had none of their capacity to adapt. the fanfare of its predecessor — which might Adaptation is a key strategy in dealing inspire the hope that its delegates are instead with climate change — including how the able to work quietly but determinedly towards developed world adapts its own lifestyle and iStockPhoto / Jo iStockPhoto

a more meaningful conclusion. That hope resource consumption. Economic interests © might be coming, if only in small part, to are clearly hampering progress, and now the some kind of fruition. UK’s Climate Change Committee, in their Sweden, Denmark, France, Germany, the In 2009, China was cast as the villain latest report, has called for a revolution in the , Ireland, the , of the Copenhagen pantomime, held country’s power industry. The free market Belgium and Luxembourg — signed a responsible for the removal from the accord, is not investing in or delivering the clean memorandum of understanding for the in closed sessions, of clauses setting targets energy that the country (or indeed the world) €20-billion project. Clusters of wind of a 1.5-degree rise in global temperature needs. The committee suggests instead that turbines, scattered mostly across the North this century and an 80% cut in global CO2 the government should decide the amount Sea, will generate the clean power that will emissions by 2050. Reports from Cancún of clean energy needed and then ask private enable the meeting of emissions targets set suggest, however, that China is now showing companies to bid to provide it. within the European Union. (There are also a greater willingness to negotiate and institute Also pushing the clean-energy agenda proposals for similar grids to pump wind curbs on its emissions, and in particular to ahead of the Cancún summit was US energy and solar power from the Sahara to Europe, discuss the issue of the verification of cuts — a secretary, and physicist, Steven Chu. Chu is and wind power from the North Atlantic to major sticking point with the US government. urging much greater US investment in the the eastern .) But first there are Although coal is still vital to the burgeoning research and development of clean-energy some major issues of electrical engineering Chinese economy, the country is cutting down technology, on top of the $80 billion directed to overcome — not least a need for the tools on carbon and has become the world’s biggest there from last year’s financial-stimulus to handle electricity as d.c. rather than a.c. producer of renewable energy sources based package. In the face of the substantial progress (the a.c. losses are too great in buried cables on wind and solar power. made by China, and also by India, he called over such distances). Even though a similar US–China face-off this a “Sputnik moment”, at which the US had Some commitment to the alleviation may have been avoided this year, the political the choice to push to be an innovative leader of climate change is, then, in evidence. will to tackle climate change is still crushingly of the technology, or to fall behind, as it once China, the United States, Europe and others insufficient. Not one leader of a G20 nation is had a choice to meet the Soviet challenge in are moving on the issue, although that attending the Cancún summit. In her address the space race. The world, he said, “essentially movement is as yet still slow and lumbering. to the conference, the executive secretary of needs a new industrial revolution. But time is Furthermore, the much-maligned Kyoto the UNFCCC Christiana Figueres stressed running out.” Protocol on climate change expires in 2012. that “the stakes at this particular conference Meanwhile, Europe is having a Sputnik Putting even the most positive spin on the are very high. The political stakes are high moment of its own, forging ahead with an progress of the Cancún summit, it is difficult because the effectiveness and credibility of ambitious scheme to build an under-sea to feel much confidence in the world’s ability your multilateral intergovernmental process grid for the distribution of wind power. On to agree a new protocol and commit, properly, are in danger. And the environmental stakes 3 December 2010, ten countries — Norway, to tackling the threat of climate change. ❐ nature physics | VOL 7 | JANUARY 2011 | www.nature.com/naturephysics 1

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