Green pressure groups and opposition MPs may have welcomed the Government’s toughening up of the Climate Change Bill’s emissions reduction targets but for Benny Peiser it merely illustrates that Britain’s politicians have no grasp of reality when it comes to cutting emissions. “The political class of Britain is in denial. They just don’t see or they don’t want to see that they are on their own now. No other country is following. It’s exactly the opposite, they are all retreating, whereas Britain is saying, ‘Oh, we are not going far enough, we need even more reductions.’ Peiser is a political scientist and social anthropologist at Liverpool John Moores University. From there he edits CCNet, a climate policy news network read by 6,000 policy-makers, journalists, academics and interested individuals across the world. LTT first interviewed Peiser two years ago (LTT 30 Nov 06), just after publication of Sir Nicholas Stern’s report on the economics of climate change and at a time when the topic was rocketing up the agenda in transport. “The political, economic climate has changed beyond recognition globally, in Europe and in Britain, from the time we last met,” he says. “Then we were at the peak of the climate change concern. I said this has to run its course, it’s unstoppable, everyone is shouting ‘The house is burning’ but eventually it will cool down. I did not expect that to happen so quickly and dramatically.”—Das ganze Interview ist hier zu lesen: http://www.staff.livjm.ac.uk/spsbpeis/LTTPeiser-Nov08.pdf