Bjørn Lomborg: $100bn a year needed to fight climate change | Environment | The Guardian

The world's most high-profile climate change sceptic is to declare that global warming is "undoubtedly one of the chief concerns facing the world today" and "a challenge humanity must confront", in an apparent U-turn that will give a huge boost to the embattled environmental lobby.

Climate change: The facts of life | Editorial | Comment is free | The Guardian

But here is the bad news: things will get worse. The same thermal inertia that delays by minutes the warming of water in a kettle applies to the planet's oceans, too. If all nations stopped burning fossil fuels immediately, the planet's oceans would still go on warming, sea levels would continue to rise, heat waves would kill thousands in the temperate zones and windstorms and floods would kill tens of thousands in the tropics. To have prevented the very modest levels of warming the world has seen so far, governments should have taken decisive action 30 years ago. But in 1980 nobody – and that included most climate scientists – appreciated how swiftly climate might change; how alarmingly a planet's temperature could begin to climb.

CBI to host climate change 'clash of the titans' debate | Environment | The Guardian

Former government chief scientist Sir David King, in the green corner, to take on arch-sceptic Lord Lawson in public showdown