With political will, there is a way to save Earth (From Gazette Series)

With political will, there is a way to save Earth

SIR - For over 30 years the Green Parties of the globe have been warning of the perils of climate change. The new study published in the Nature journal confirms what was already known: climate change is potentially the most serious environmental challenge facing humankind. By 2050 it is estimated we will have lost a quarter of land animals and plants.

So far the political and corporate response to this problem has been grossly inadequate. Tony Blair, on the one hand, champions Kyoto, and on the other launches a massive airport expansion and a £7 billion road building programme.

Kyoto is not enough; we need urgent, drastic action to cut greenhouse gas emissions. We need more localisation, more energy efficiency policies, less air travel and above all a policy that promotes economic and social justice. This means reducing the planet's CO2 emissions to a sustainable annual amount and ensuring that all countries' emissions converge over time to a position where entitlement to emit is proportional to population.

If the political will was there, Britain could cut its level of CO2 emissions by as much as 90 percent by 2050. There is great potential in the UK to generate most of our energy from renewable sources. One measure would be to fit solar panels as standard in new buildings. As well as providing electricity, each solar panel could prevent over 34 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions during its lifetime.

The positive benefits of non-nuclear renewable energy are immense, and something that we cannot afford to miss. The European Commission has calculated that simply doubling Europe's output of renewables would create between 500,000 and 900,000 new jobs.

More than ever now we need a new political direction that puts environmental safeguards at the top of the political agenda.

David Wood, Commercial Road, Chalford Hill, Stroud