I am surprised that in various countries, whether it's the U.K. or the U.S., you see isolationist tendencies that would tend to work against the co-operation, whether it's climate change, immigration, innovation, helping the very poorest. Those are things where... ...
The US spends more on energy R&D than all other countries put together, and I personally consider it quite inadequate. In fact, I would have said we should more than double it, if I thought the absorptive capacity could scale... ...
The US really has to get out in front. We are the biggest per person, by a substantial amount, greenhouse emitters, and we give the most foreign aid, not per person but in absolute.
If you really could take the CO2, when you burn hydrocarbons - coal, for example - if you could really capture the carbon and sequester it - they call it CCS - if the extra capital cost, energy cost, and... ...
Today, we take the risk of nuclear war quite seriously, climate change not so much and epidemics least of all. But no single country, not even the United States, is well prepared. And even if one country is doing the... ...
When I say "an energy miracle," I mean that there will be some form of energy whose 24 hour cost really is competitive with hydrocarbons given, say, 20 years of learning curve. You invent it, then you look at how... ...
By the time we see that climate change is really bad, your ability to fix it is extremely limited... The carbon gets up there, but the heating effect is delayed. And then the effect of that heat on the species... ...
Now, if you're rich, you can spend a lot of money, Netherlands-style, and reduce that. But Bangladesh or parts of India, like Calcutta, they just simply won't be able to afford that kind of protection.
