Mucking Around at the Edges

That’s how Oxford economist Dieter Helm describes global efforts to stem greenhouse gas emissions, in a brutally candid interview with Nature.

Warning! The contents of his interview are for mature audiences only. For example, wind power advocates might want to close their eyes during this part:

What exactly will windmills across Europe do to address that overwhelmingly dominant effect? Of course they’ll play some role, but it’ll probably take a couple of weeks for China to add sufficient new coal power stations to cancel out any renewables effort in Britain. It’s time to grow up. It’s time to realize that coal is where the core of the problem lies, and to think cleverly about solutions towards that.