Gordon Brown

Will Ed Miliband take Britain’s Labor Party from red to green?

Ed Miliband, new leader of Britain's Labor Party, helped to push through binding targets on CO2 emissions. How will he shape the party's green agenda?

British PM attacks “anti-science, flat-earth climate sceptics”

“With only days to go before Copenhagen we mustn’t be distracted by the behind-the-times, anti-science, flat-earth climate sceptics,” Brown told the Guardian. “We know the science. We know what we must do. We must now act….” So the British PM joins the leaders of Australia and this country in condemning the anti-science disinformers (see Obama […]

Copenhagen talks ready for take off: 5, 4, 3…

Will world leaders rocket at Copenhagen?Photo: jurvetson via Flickr Creative CommonsSuddenly — and just in the nick of time — next month’s Copenhagen conference is starting to gain momentum. National leaders have rushed to say they are going, elevating it to the status of a major summit. More and more commitments to action are coming […]

London gathering gives boost to climate talks

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has committed his politically battered government to sealing a climate deal in Copenhagen this year. Above, Brown speaks at the Major Economies Forum, held this past weekend in London.UK Dept. of Energy & Climate Change It certainly caught the eye. “The world’s future is being decided this weekend” ran the […]

On climate, leading from the front (for a change)

Leaders of the world’s richest and fastest-growing economies are pushing for climate action even though their citizens have yet to wake up to the scale of the problem. Above, national leaders pose at the most recent G8 meeting last June in Italy. (White House Photo).Something unusual seems to be happening in the struggle to wake […]

Melting the glacial pace of climate talks

A view of the climate talks in Bangkok. Can you imagine getting this many people to agree on anything more substantive than the lunch menu?UNFCCC via FlickrHere they go again. As delegates from some 180 nations gather yet again to try to make progress on negotiating a new climate agreement, they are beginning to feel […]

Britain’s Labour government places big bet on low-carbon future

The Science Museum is one of London’s best-loved landmarks, largely because generations of children have been taken there by their parents to play with its increasingly sophisticated sets of hands-on gadgets. But it also houses the originals of some of the iconic inventions that made possible Britain’s Industrial Revolution. Lord Mandelson, Britain’s deputy prime minister, […]

Britain’s battered leader is set on saving the world

At home he is almost universally seen as a politician running out of time, but Prime Minister Gordon Brown continues to stride onto the international stage as if he were guaranteed many more years in power. He may have lost his rapport with the British public, chalked up blunder after blunder, and already faced two […]

Will U.K.'s prime minister act to address the biggest threat to Britain's youth?

This is a guest post by noted NASA climate scientist James Hansen. It has also been submitted to the Observer.

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Over a year ago I wrote to Prime Minister Brown asking him to place a moratorium on new coal-fired power plants in Britain. I have asked the same of Angela Merkel, Barack Obama, Kevin Rudd, and other world leaders. The reason is this -- coal is the single greatest threat to civilization and all life on our planet.

Our global climate is nearing tipping points. Changes are beginning to appear, and there is potential for explosive changes with effects that would be irreversible -- if we do not rapidly slow fossil fuel emissions over the next few decades.

Tipping points are fed by amplifying feedbacks. As Arctic sea ice melts, the darker ocean absorbs more sunlight and speeds melting. As tundra melts, methane -- a strong greenhouse gas -- is released, causing more warming. As species are pressured and exterminated by shifting climate zones, ecosystems can collapse, destroying more species.

The public, buffeted by day-to-day weather fluctuations and economic turmoil, has little time or training to analyze decadal changes. How can they be expected to evaluate and filter out advice emanating from special economic interests? How can they distinguish top-notch science and pseudoscience -- the words sound the same?

Leaders have no excuse -- they are elected to lead and to protect the public and its best interests. Leaders have at their disposal the best scientific organizations in the world, such as the United Kingdom's Royal Society and the United States National Academy of Sciences. Only in the past few years did the science crystallize, revealing the urgency.