Cameron is going to need all that ‘green crap’

Does this government have any idea what it’s doing on global warming?

It has just signed a farreaching agreement in Paris which commits the country to taking rapid and serious measures to change the way in which we generate energy. Cameron, along with other world leaders, basked in self-adulation at this achievement. But the Government knows perfectly well, because it was made clear by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, that a restriction of warming to 2C (let alone 1.5C) can only be achieved by removing carbon from the atmosphere.

That means developing methods to perform that difficult feat. And Britain seemed to be in the lead in the development of carbon capture and storage techniques for use in coal-fired power stations; that is, until October when our brilliantly green Prime Minister decided to cancel the project after four years of competitive development.

And in just two weeks’ time the feed-in tariff on fitting solar panels to one’s house will go down from 12.5p per unit to a ludicrous 1p, so we cannot expect to see any more solar power on people’s roofs.

Up in the Orkney Islands devoted groups of engineers and entrepreneurs are working to develop wave power and current turbine systems and test them in those rough waters, but with pathetic little dripfeeds of support which are insufficient to bring any system to market, and which are tiny compared to the massive overt and covert subsidies still being ladled out to the fossil fuel industry.

I suspect that both the Chancellor and the Prime Minister actually despise renewable energy, but someone needs to remind them that they have actually signed up to all that “green crap” in a solemn international agreement. Professor Peter Wadhams Cambridge Your two editorials of 14 December (“It’s getting hot in here” and “Good luck Major Tim”) were connected.

It’s hard to believe that decisive action will take place, globally, to prevent catastrophic climate change. The pressures exerted by population and economic growth are too strong. We will, in any case, soon exhaust the “small blue dot” of its minuscule resources. Yet the resources in space are all but infinite, and it is far easier to manage a modest artificial environment than a natural planetary one.

To go to the Moon, we had to recycle air. To inhabit a space station (economically), we have to recycle water as well. For a mission to Mars, we must also learn how to recycle food and block radiation. Once these technical challenges are met, there are few remaining obstacles not just to the exploration and exploitation of space, but to living there permanently. The greatest of these is an economical way to escape Earth’s gravity; something in which Britain leads with the Sabre engine and proposed Skylon spaceplane.

Spaceflight is not merely a PR stunt; it will prove essential technology for the survival of our civilisation, such as it is. In the meantime, there are riches to be won. Comsats and weather-sats are just the start. Dr Ian East Islip, Oxfordshire Your editorial “It’s getting hot here” (14 December) fails, like almost every public policy statement on climate change, to mention the contribution which we can all as individuals make, by avoiding air and car travel whenever possible, reducing our meat consumption, etc. So long as people think the solution is solely a matter for governments, a crucial piece of the jigsaw will be missing.

Surely a culture which promotes liberty and individual enterprise ought to be more attuned to what each human being can do to reduce the harm to our grandchildren. Antony Black Dundee Any progress toward action on climate change is welcome.

What has not been mentioned is that the discussions have been between nations, though the final arbiter is nature, and she neither negotiates nor gives quarter. I am not convinced that the human delegates quite got that. Nature is indifferent to our survival. There is no plan B. Steve Ford Haydon Bridge, Northumberland