Whether this particular scandal started in a small hidden town in Russia or with a scientist in East Anglia one thing is very apparent- IT did NOT start in the Watergate Hotel.

If you think increasing carbon dioxide and consequently polluting the atmosphere is in some way a good thing then I can see your point for jumping on the band wagon. Let’s all turn around now and forget about Copenhagen, and possibly save on a few air miles.  While we are at it let’s stop saving rain forests, forget about renewable energy and enjoy the warm weather while it’s still bearable.

However if you have ever even opened a text book, journal or presentation on climate change I think you might just find sources of research other than the IPCC. They are obviously the dominant force within this close knit community; however they are certainly not the only one. People have been measuring ice sheets, tree rings, sea temperatures, land temperatures and atmospheric temperatures for years. Just look what the ice sheets have been doing for the past 56 years.

Or take a look at glacial retraction over the past decade. Having studied both glaciations and climate change at university within the last 10 years I am perhaps better qualified than most lazy journalists who add the word ‘gate’ to their copy for maximum impact rather than a balanced argument.

Sadly Sinicism and global conspiracies sell considerably more copies, than fact.

So after momentarily questioning my business, my degree, my past academic mentors and ultimately my life I now stand tall and remember all those interesting lectures and field trips that led me to pursue a career in sustainable investment.

Despite the e-mail scandal, the evidence that human activity is largely responsible for climate change during the last 50 years is still very strong.

For those of you still adamant it’s all a great hoax on the same scale as the emperor’s new clothes

Pascal’s Wager suggested that even though the existence of God (substitute for climate change) cannot be determined through reason, a person should wager as though God/(Climate change)  exists, because living life accordingly has everything to gain, and nothing to lose.

Following an historic meeting in mid November 2009, both President Hu Jintao of the People’s Republic of China and President Obama of the United States of America, outlined their “Action Plan”. In this the US and Chinese administration agreed to invest US$150m (yes million, not billion) over 5 years in “research & development” toward mitigating climate change. Breaking it down, they will be investing $75m each over 5 years, so $15m each, each year. It doesn’t take much to see through these glossy magazine-selling statistics and realise that this is little more than a get-out-of-Copenhagen-free card.

In the UK, Nicholas Stern outlined that we need to be spending 1% of GDP (recently increased to 2%) to have the minimum necessary impact on climate change. Other recent estimates suggest over €1trn in the next 10 years is the minimum required and these funds are needed immediately to have the desired impact. Without arguing over the highly debated cost of climate change mitigation, the fact is that the figures are very high and much higher than those proposed by the US-China “Action Plan”. Whilst we can argue over the state of our economies (in the US unemployment and health care are considered much more important in public opinion), this latest offering is nothing less than a slap in the face to those attending Copenhagen.

To ensure the critics did not focus on the figures, the US and China employed a typical diversion tactic agreeing and highlighting that “climate change is one of the greatest challenges of our time” and confirming that they are both “fully committed to a successful outcome in Copenhagen this December”. Yet President Obama will be attending for just one day, and President Jintao is not attending at all. Confused? So rather than commit to any levels of reduction, or play any major part in Copenhagen, we have a new “US-China Energy Efficiency Action Plan” to hang our hopes on.

The US Department of Energy and the National Energy Administration of China will invest $150m over 5 years on solutions for energy efficiency in buildings, clean coal including carbon sequestration, and clean vehicles. The “US-China Electric Vehicle” initiative aims to advance the electric vehicle market whilst they also launched the “US-China Renewable Energy Partnership” which will chart a pathway to wide-scale deployment of wind, solar, advanced bio-fuels and a modern smart electric power grid in both countries. Meanwhile to engage a short-term solution, “Coal in the 21st Century” initiative will promote cooperation on carbon capture and storage projects. See the White House website for details.

President Barack Obama on Friday abruptly altered the timing of his appearance at an international climate summit in Copenhagen. The move means Obama will be at the summit on Dec. 18, considered a crucial period when more leaders will be in attendance, as opposed to his original plan to be in Denmark next Wednesday on his way to Oslo to receive his Nobel Peace Prize. Ironically his flight to Copenhagen to discuss measures to curb climate change will be his tenth foreign flight in his first presidential year.

With a recent report from the WWF outlining that we have less than 5 years to stop uncontrollable climate change, hopefully by now you would have imagined that the climate change skeptics would have been educated long ago. It seems however they remain steadfast in their own self-denial, be it adamant, ignorant or just stupid. With Nasa, UN and independent scientists and scholars all around the World pointing out that drastic and immediate measures need to be taken to prevent a 2˚C temperature rise, hopefully there will be no doubters in Copenhagen..And why the concern over a 2ºC degree increase? Only that a catastrophic breakdown of ecosystems, leading to mass migration, poverty, hunger and drought, with half of all animals and plants going extinct and a large sea level rise, and massive change in weather patterns. This has been forecast to occur at current rates within the next 35 years!

Droughts, acidic oceans and melting glaciers are the most simple signs of accelerated global warming, a United Nations report said recently. Mountain glaciers in Asia are melting at such advanced rates that they could threaten water supplies far sooner than expected, including irrigation and hydropower, affecting up to 25% of the World’s population.

So with regards to Copenhagen, what is really making this all so difficult? Our complete dependence on fossil fuels and an inability to realise an affordable and scaleable replacement is the main problem. Of course this is not helped by the fact that developed nations like China and the US have such high levels of pollution, and yet don’t seem willing to even announce let alone stick to emission reduction targets. A fundamental change in developed society, how we live, how we travel, how we eat, will all need to occur if society is to have any chance of preventing climate change. Our lives will change drastically in the coming years of that there is no doubt. Perhaps also the largest single issue with the Kyoto Protocol was that the developed nations need the less-developed nations to help them reach their emission reduction targets, but dont seem willing to pay for it! With next week looming, these are nervous times indeed.