Oh, Yeah, Right, I Forgot - UK Government Vaguely Aware Of Some Sort Of Climate Conference Going On

[hatrack]

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Not long ago, politicians were proclaiming that climate change was the greatest threat facing the world. David Cameron drove a pack of huskies across a glacier, proclaiming that the Conservatives had to lead a "new green revolution and recapture climate change from the pessimists". Today, amid the preoccupations of a global recession, the future of the world itself seems a secondary concern for the political classes. The key villain remains the United States, which a year before presidential elections will not sign up to a new green target. China will not play ball either. Japan, Russia and Canada have pulled out of the current negotiations.

Britain has witnessed the dramatic slide of environmentalism down the political agenda. Last night, the Labour leader, Ed Miliband, accused Mr Cameron of being "desperately out of touch with anyone who cares about our environment". Liberal Democrats claimed their coalition partners no longer saw electoral advantage in their "vote blue, go green" message. Even the Prime Minister's own "green guru", Steve Hilton, confesses he has doubts about the climate-change argument.

However, the issue will be placed centre stage this week when Sir David Attenborough's highly acclaimed BBC series Frozen Planet concludes with a personal testimony from the much-loved natural history broadcaster about how polar bears and other species still remain on the front-line of the environmental threat.

George Osborne, the Chancellor, signalled a major shift in Tory positioning last week when he suggested cutting carbon emissions would threaten jobs: "We are not going to save the planet by shutting down our steel mills, aluminium smelters and paper manufacturers." His anti-green rhetoric sparked a rift in a coalition that had pledged to be "the greenest government ever". The Liberal Democrat president, Tim Farron, accused Mr Osborne of adopting climate-sceptic language "to placate 50 or 60 climate deniers on the back benches, people who read the Daily Mail and people called Jeremy Clarkson".

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http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/durban-conference-the-forgotten-planet-6272110.html