Climate change needs broad-based public support

If they want to be successful, climate researchers and environmental ministers must above all convince public opinion in their own countries, writes Clive Crook in the Financial Times: "National politics - the democratic process - is awfully inconvenient sometimes, but cannot be waved away. The climate-science establishment - scientists subscribing to the global warming consensus and most governments, judging by words not deeds - understands this. ... This is why the Copenhagen meeting has a theatrical aspect; it is as much about public relations as about serious efforts to confront global warming. ... Governments should be honest and base their case for action on what they know - that is, on a balance of probabilities, not on exaggerated certainties. The public, they will find, can cope. Voters are not fools."

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