Two years ago, the world demanded a fair and ambitious global climate change agreement.  60,000 people participated in marches in Glasgow, Belfast and London on the eve of the talks and 100,000 took to the streets in Copenhagen.  The collapse of the talks shattered public confidence in our political leaders ability to forge a deal to cut greenhouse gas emissions. 

So where are we now?  In short - we are not in a good place.

First the evidence - it was reported late on Friday that global carbon emissions last year rose by 6 percent.    The rise was driven by three nations: the US, India, and China with emissions from coal the prime culprit. The new data makes it even less likely that we will be able to prevent the world from warming over 2 degrees Celsius. To avoid catastrophic climate change we need to stablise atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases at about 350 parts per million.  This means global emissions need to peak and decline this decade before halving by 2050.  This year's massive increase in emissions - higher than the worse case scenario  - suggests we have failed to get a grip.

With the latest climate talks due to start in Durban on 28 November, it is time for political leaders around the world to find their backbone.  Being distracted by the economic crisis is frankly a feeble excuse for failing to face up to the scale of the challenge.  Yet, when was the last time you heard a political leader in this country talk about the fact the world was frying?  Mr Cameron, Mr Clegg, Mr Miliband?  Erm, I am scratching my head and no, I cannot think of a single speech from any of them.

Later this week, WWF, Natural England and RSPB will be hosting a conference to discuss the implications of climate change on wildlife and people.  We shall be hearing about the latest science, the latest evidence and, in the face of the gloomy prognosis, I shall try to strike a note of optimism.  I would like to be cheered by news about the UK Government's strategy for delivering a favourable outcome from the talks.  Today, I shall be joining a group of NGOs to meet Chris Huhne, the Secretary of State of Energy and Climate Change.  It is his responsibility to work with his European counterparts to get something out of the talks in Durban.  We need him - and his colleagues around the Cabinet table - to be investing our government's diplomatic firepower into these negotiations.

The problems are clear.  First,  developed countries are not taking enough action.  Second, developing countries now emit more than developed ones and their emissions are rising much faster.

Alas, expectations remain low, but there is still much to fight for.  The existing Kyoto Protocol runs out in 2012, and a successor is urgently needed.  Although most countries (apart from the USA, Turkey, Malta, Belarus and a few other left-overs from the former Soviet Union) signed the current Kyoto Protocol, only developed countries have to take on legal binding, emission limitation or reduction commitments.  Kyoto parties with targets make up about 26% of global emissions. 

Unfortunately the countries that will not sign to a successor treaty include the US and China who between them account for about 42% of the world's emissions and now it looks like Japan and Canada will also withdraw.

So what's the solution?  Well, the larger, more advanced developing countries, such as China, need to limit their emissions severely but there is no chance of this whilst the developed countries refuse to take a lead and cut their emissions hard, now.  For some years, the climate negotiations have been stuck in a bizarre and suicidal mind-set where one side waits for the other to make the first move, apparently not caring if we all fry in the interim.

Saving the Kyoto Protocol is part of a stratagem to break out of the current mindset and for some leaders, notably the EU, to show that they will take on binding commitments and raise their targets - 30% by 2020 would be a start.  It is far from complete or perfect solution but it would bank what we have move things forward.  The alternative is to let the Kyoto Protocol lapse, with no countries having legally binding targets, and hope that something better turns up.  Durban will, hopefully, decide on a mandate to negotiate new treaty but it will be hard.  But saving the planet is always going to be hard but, on balance, I have a feeling most would say it was worth it.

This is not the time to give up, it is the time when we need real political leaders to stand up and be counted.

When was the last time you heard a speech from a political leader in the UK on climate change?  What do you expect of our leaders at Durban? And what are you going to do about it?

It would be great to hear you views.

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  • Go on fighting for the best - but prepare for the worst ! Did you see the Tom Heap programme on energy last night ? Apparently offshore wind is the only serious renewable, gas has become a sort of honoury renewable and there's total confusion between whether its electricity or energy we're really talking about (49% of our energy, little of it electricity goes, on heat compared to just 12% on transport). The answer seems pretty obvious - we should have a basket of solutions ranging from tidal and wave to ground sourced heat, biomass and even solar - all of them, unlike now, with accountable environmental credentials - no sliced Golden Eagles, no Severn barrage type schemes and any wood biomass imports FSC certified.

    And, in case you're wondering where the problem is, I was staggered by the Guardian story today about the secretive American Koch brothers - oil billionares worth a cool $25b each - who are reckoned to have contributed $55 billion to climate change denail causes since 1997 - that is what RSPB and their fellow climate-change lobbying NGOs are up against.