Climate change research has a big impact on government policy with some governments, but not all. Governments are in a tricky position, on the one hand they would like to appease climate change hysteria and play it safe, on the other hand they don't want to handicap their industries, lower national prosperity and raise unemployment by fulfilling the demands of the greens and taking drastic steps to reduce CO2 emissions. There is no doubt at all that climate change is happening, because it has always been happening. At present we are on a warming trend which began about 12,000 years ago. At present, atmospheric CO2 levels are about 400 parts per million and rising, but they have been a lot higher within historical times, and far higher within the last half-a- billion years. An added complication is that it is impossible to distinguish between anthropogenic CO2 and CO2 from natural sources, and there are many other factors which complicate the issue.
Take glacial retreat for example. There is scientific consensus that most glaciers are melting and on the retreat, but a surprising number, hundreds rather than dozens, are advancing. 876
This is not to say there is no global warming, scientific opinion is that global warming is a reality and that rising CO2 levels will exacerbate it, but by how much is uncertain. A further complication is that increased CO2 levels promote increased plant growth (by plant growth I mean everything from rainforest, peat bogs and agricultural crops to marine cyanobacteria, algae and phytoplankton),so to some extent rising CO2 levels are self-correcting. There is a danger, however, that this self-correction mechanism could be swamped if CO2 levels rise too quickly.
One thing you can be sure of is that the reductions in CO2 emissions which environmentalists tell us are necessary will not be met or even almost met by the major emitters. Regardless of whether countries like UK meet their targets or not, major industrial countries like USA, China, Russia and India won't. That is a fact that people will just have to get used to, and if the consequences are catastrophic (lets hope they won't be) we will just have to live with them. Perhaps the start of the next ice age will rescue us; despite <PERSON> cycles they are not entirely predictable. There was a 450-year Little Ice Age, beginning about AD 1350 and ending about AD 1800, which no one can explain. Scientific advances like electric vehicles will help, but it will take a major breakthrough like the perfection of fusion reactor power stations to make a really important difference. 876