It took Hurricane Katrina’s battering of New Orleans in 2005 to alert many people to the risks of climate change.  Will the storm in financial markets make them forget all about global warming again?

The financial crisis that may cost the United States $700 billion to fix is likely to shift actions to fight climate change towards cheaper, sure-fire winners such as energy efficiency — such as better insulation for buildings – rather than more exotic long-term projects such as trapping and burying carbon dioxide from power plants. Read the story  here.

The U.N. Climate Panel insists that the world has to act now to avert ever more droughts, floods, heatwaves, more powerful cyclones and rising sea levels. Fixing the problem now will be a lot cheaper than suffering the consequences.

But Bjorn Lomborg, author of “The Skeptical Environmentalist”, says that the feeling for many people may be: “when it comes down to it, do you want to save your job, or do you want to help people in 100 years’ time by cutting your emissions?”

On another front, the ‘green economy’ may bounce back faster than many sectors because of government-guaranteed revenues for renewable energy, experts also told my colleagues Gerard Wynn and Timothy Gardner. For their story, click here.

What do you think?