COPOUT: How Governments Have Failed the People on Climate An Insider's View of Climate Change Conferences, from Paris to Dubai

About this book

Most people tend to turn away, perhaps understandably, from the key existential issue of the day: climate change or, some would say more accurately, climate collapse. Nick Breeze has been interviewing climate scientists and related experts since setting out in 2009 with a film crew to interview the late Professor James Lovelock for a proposed documentary with the working title A Hitchhiker's Guide to Gaia. Here, he tells the engaging, very human story of successive COP conferences over the past decade: it is a tale of imperfection, failure even, but not yet defeat.

So far, the UN process has achieved almost the exact opposite of what it first set out to achieve at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992. Nick shows clearly that it is not Extinction Rebellion, Just Stop Oil nor any other climate protesters who are the extremists; the true extremists are the policymakers who consistently undermine faltering efforts to reduce emissions. Repeatedly claiming to be saving us whilst allowing carbon emissions to continue rising, governments have failed their people on climate. Nick shows us how, why and what we can do about it.

The public remains largely uninformed about climate change and, for the most part, those who seek to draw attention to the issue are seen as 'crazy'. There remains a terrifying gap between scientific reality and political action. Packed with his own experiences and insights from expert interviewees, Nick's page-turning account is less about the intricacies of the science and more about the mainstream perception of how we are understanding and responding to the problem.

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Biography

Nick Breeze has been interviewing climate scientists and related experts since setting out in 2009 with a film crew to interview Professor James Lovelock for a proposed documentary with the working title A Hitchhiker's Guide to Gaia. In 2017, he co-founded the Cambridge Climate Lecture Series (CCLS) with Professor Hugh Hunt and Dr Tony Eva in Cambridge, which brings world-renowned experts to Trinity College for live-streamed lectures on a range of climate issues. Prior to engaging with climate change in 2009, Nick was a budding wine journalist. His reporting includes conferences that have attracted Al Gore and former President Obama.