Anyway, China Isn't Doing It

The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is about to publish another report about global warming. Previous instalments have analysed the scientific evidence and the probable effects of climate change; the new report, which comes out on Friday, focuses on "possible" solutions. As one would expect, it is thoroughly pessimistic, noting that "It is technically and economically feasible to stabilise greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere ... provided that incentives are in place to further develop and implement a range of mitigation technologies". Among its other derelictions, the report also implies that "better public transport can make a significant contribution"; that there should be "new controls on industrial pollutants"; that "active policy involvement" may be necessary to ensure the continued social responsibility of energy companies; and that, despite American plans for putting big mirrors in space, "there's no blue sky technology to ... provide all the energy for your house". All this is, of course, a vast, transparent euphemism for government interference in the free market, and will thus achieve little except to provide yet further proof of the UN's irrelevance to Britain's nearly independent weapons of mass destruction, to the Surveillance Makes You Free Project, to the 2012 Olympics and to all the other concerns and aspirations of real people.