Countdown to Copenhagen09

Two hundred and seventy four days to Copenhagen 09. Who cares? Well, I do, for one, and I'm trying to make sense of amount of information we have on climate change. I started the grandly titled Strategic Carbon Management MBA at the UEA in January and thought I was pretty well informed. Renewables is the future, no need for nuclear and bio-fuels seem troublesome and coal is a really bad idea in the race to reduce carbon emissions.

It's more complicated than that. There are hard choices, for sure, but there's also a lot of muddled thinking. So I'm aiming to get some clarity. For me, I have some key questions:

1. Renewables. Will they be enough? If we have solar panels on every house, an increase in tidal and wave energy and continue with our wind development will we be able to cut emissions by 40%?
2. How do we change consumer behaviour? We're talking about cutting emissions by 40% in ten years. Can you think of one example where government initiatives or the private sector have managed to achieve such a target in such a short space of time? So what role does carbon marketing have?
3. What new technologies are out there? There's been a lot of focus on, say, green cars and how they will assist us to reduce emissions. You can see how revolutionary the Internet has been in the space of ten years. Is there a green equivalent?
4. Is there a carbon margin? Kyoto and current UK legislation is focused on tradeable pollution permits making the assumption that the profit motive is essential to reducing emissions. Will this work?
5. Finally, if the government is too slow to react will it be too late to reduce emissions or will the market simply adjust prices? In other words, will businesses reflect a carbon price once profits start to decline? Who will this impact the most?