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‘Green’ expert sees red over UK climate pledges
Professor Sir David King, the British government’s former top scientific adviser, is no stranger to controversy.
He ruffled feathers on both sides of the Atlantic in 2004 when he described climate change as a more serious threat to the world than terrorism.
Earlier this year, he said the Iraq war may come to be seen as the world first’s “resource war”, based on oil rather than weapons of mass destruction.
Now the South African-born academic risks putting more politicians’ noses out of joint.
Plane stupid?
Environmental protest group Plane Stupid manage to prevent at least 21 flights taking off when they invaded a runway at Stansted airport for five hours on Monday morning.
The group are protesting over the government’s decision to allow the expansion of Stansted Airport with a second runway. The protest also follows the decision last week by Transport Secretary Geoff Hoon to delay the decision on whether to build a third runway at Heathrow until January.
Climate change: the vision thing
Leaders of the G8 and the world’s developing nations have agreed a “shared vision” on fighting climate change — but long-standing differences have prevented them agreeing on any specific targets.
The G8 on its own favours a halving of harmful emissions by 2050 but industrialising nations like China and India will not sign up to that goal, arguing that their primary commitment is to improve the living standards of their people.
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The Wall
