Earlier this week more than 20 Greenpeace volunteers climbed the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona to tell governments meeting here ahead of the UN climate summit in Copenhagen to "save the climate".

Yesterday Ed Miliband added his voice to the chorus coming from many EU and US officials saying that he's concluded that there won’t be a legally binding agreement at Copenhagen next month. By his measure a proper deal faces a delay of at least six months, and probably more.

From this it would seem that warm words and a warming world are now all we can look forward to from the UN climate summit in Copenhagen. Over the past few weeks our political leaders have scrambled to lower expectations. This statement marks a new low. A year ago Copenhagen was going to be it, our best opportunity to avoid unprecedented climatic disaster. Now, we are being told it will be talks about more talks.

Graham takes another press enquiry in what certainly isn't a staged photo.

I'm a press officer, but I've only been doing the job for a week, so any super-confident account of what it's like standing athwart the 21st century 24/7 information super-thingumajig would be pure bluff and bluster. Which is what press officers do, I suppose, but like I said, I've only been doing it for a week.

However, I have been working for Greenpeace  for almost a decade now, so I must have picked up something (in addition to a criminal record).

The various jobs I've had here include GM campaigner, toxics campaigner and ‘Peace Consultant' - how cool is that? Only lasted for a few weeks back in 2004, but I think it brightens up my CV considerably.

I am bathed in the warm glow of the righteous, for not only did I march with them, but I marched in the rain. Once you've made the decision, a little bit of meteorological adversity boosts everyone's sense of camaraderie. Apart, that is, from my fair-weather 'friend' Richard, who buggered off to the pub about ten minutes in, and is therefore the worst sort of part-timer and highly deserving of public contempt and derision. I try to do my bit.

So, apart from Richard the faithless, we were all there to send a message to Bali, where our glorious leaders are trying to save us all from climate Armageddon without imperilling the ability of large companies to make more money. Fortunately, climate change was recently reclassified from environmental disaster to business opportunity. Phew.

A banner flies over the camp, alongside a plane © Kristian Buus

I got the train from Paddington to Hays and Harlington Station on Wednesday, and then the 140 bus to the corner of Harlington High Street and Sipson Lane. A nice fellow I met on the bus showed me some of the alternative entrances I could use if the main entrance is blocked, and then we strolled down Sipson Lane to the main entrance.

I’d been super-cautious, and left my wallet and anything else I didn’t want to be seized as evidence at home. I wasn’t planning to do anything which would require evidence to be seized, but what with our heightened state of something-or-other, I thought it was best not to take any chances. I was gutted when no-one searched me.

Part of the Climate Clinic blog

So, having lambasted the leader of the opposition for being all talk, perhaps in fairness I should talk a bit more about what he talked about. It's mostly good stuff. Blair may have said that climate change is our biggest threat and challenge, but he clearly hasn't put it at the top of his to-do list (although as Bush seems to have editorial control that's not really surprising). Cameron stands in marked contrast for having given the issue as much time as Tony's apocalyptic pronouncements imply that it deserves, so firstly that should be acknowleged - every time Cameron has spoken about the climate, he was sacrificing the opportunity to talk about law and order or some other issue which might have given him a political benefit. Talk may be cheap, but it isn't free.

Part of the Climate Clinic blog

The Hadley Centre, part of the Met Office, has just released some research, today, in the Climate Clinic, at the Tory conference. The main headline finding is that drought is set to double this century due to climate change. A spoil-sport serious newspaper would also mention that this figure refers to 'moderate' drought. Moderate drought can still be pretty dangerous if you don't have much in the way of resources to fall back on. Generally the agriculture in a particular area is suited to that area's climate. If you have an agricultural system which requires a lot of rainfall, such as paddy fields, then even a drought which doesn't look like a drought to the average observer could ruin your harvest and lead to a famine.

Part of the Climate Clinic blog



BAA spin doctors (seated) look shifty when probed about how more runways mean less aviation emissions ...

I was so excited by my discovery of environmentally aware conservatism that I may have missed out some of the detail. The bloke from BAA wants inreased capacity (bigger airports) whilst dealing with emissions via efficiency gains and the European Emissions Trading Scheme - ie air travel will continue more or less unchecked, but the aviation industry would have to buy carbon credits from industries which had managed to cut back. I'm not aware of anyone outside the industry who thinks that this might work unassisted - certainly Gummer was quite clear that it wouldn't, and my understanding is that were we to follow this track every scrap of industry or society outside of aviation would have to get down to zero emissions by 2030.