Power from the people

Our climate is changing. Melting ice sheets, rising sea levels, flooded cities. These are all part of our future and our children's future. And not because of some immutable force of nature. The body of scientific evidence is overwhelming: the changes in our planet's environment are a direct result of human action.

But all this talk of catastrophic climate change... it must be a matter for the G8, the EU perhaps the UN? Surely presidents and prime ministers are the only people with the power to arrest climate change? Up to a point this is true and there is a developing international agenda in which the UK is taking the lead. But as individuals we are far from powerless. Indeed as individuals we are responsible for 27 per cent of the UK's total emissions of carbon dioxide. At the moment we are all part of the problem, in terms of how we use and abuse energy in our homes and modes of transport.