Climate change costs a concern

Sir, – The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is yet again warning that nations must act to reduce their CO2 emissions and save the planet.

More’s the pity that China, India and other countries are not listening. No word from IPCC of Germany razing a 12,000-year-old forest to expand a dirty opencast lignite mine.

No word, either, on the fact that the world has oil resources for 190 years, natural gas for 230 years and coal for 2,300 years.

Nor is there any mention of the world population being 11.2 billion by 2100 or that the 1.28 billion vehicles in the world will increase to two billion by 2035.

Meanwhile, the antimeat lobby say that cutting out meat will reduce CO2 emissions but do not mention the one billion cattle and one billion sheep in the world.

Strangely there is also no mention of the UN-backed scientific report which says that stopping climate change will cost the world £1.8 trillion – that is £1,800 billion or £1,800,000 million – every year for the next 20 years, so where is it coming from?

Could the IPCC please give due consideration to all the relevant factors and also mention these somewhat inconvenient truths?

Clark Cross.

138 Springfield Road, Linlithgow.

Any unbiased observer of the Brexit negotiations will have seen the contrast between the manners of our representatives such as David Davis and, say, Guy Verhofstadt, who has been described as the ‘rudest man in the European Parliament’, and is one of their chief negotiators