For years I have had to debate with eco-sceptics about the significance of being not only involved and aware of the climate change issue, but also pro-active in addressing it. Too many times I have heard the excuse that the UK is just a relatively small player (in terms of population and emissions) to make any effort worthwhile and basically, as long as the US or China continued to snub Kyoto or other similar efforts, then we were all doomed…

Finally, after last week’s US election, I think such views will have been relegated from being foolishly dismissive and irresponsible, to downright untenable. The simple reason for this is that, with Barrack Obama in the White House, the developed world stands a real chance of uniting to lead the kind of co-ordinated global effort that is essential if we are to arrest the current slide towards environmental disaster.

For the first time since the issue has been a major one in the public consciousness (alas it has been on the minds of many scientific experts for a good deal longer) we have the political personnel to work together and support the policies and initiatives that are so needed. It is impossible to underestimate just how significant it is to have the world’s biggest polluter and contributor to climate change (the USA) acknoweledging the problem and joining in with fixing it.

For this reason it is crucial that the EU does not allow the economic crisis to derail such efforts at a time when progress and positive action is far more palpable than at any time during the previous eight years of Bush’s reign. Obama intends to discourage the use of coal-fired power stations using heavy tax restrictions, and will veto many of Bush’s environmentally damaging policies (such as his relaxation of oil drilling bans on the Alaskan wilderness). The EU would do well to match these moves with equivalent ones this side of the pond, especially as the UK plans a significant expansion of its coal-generation capacity.

Of course we cannot expect to fix things overnight, and indeed it will be a few more weeks before the man is even in office - but the point is that amidst all the significance of the election in terms of the history of US race-relations, we must also remember that for the first time there is a man in the White House who intends to make tackling climate change a political priority. We must not desert the cause now when such powerful re-enforcements are arriving to the front - rather it seems essential to step-up our efforts both as individual citizens, and as a global political power, and work to avoid the environmental destruction that draws ever nearer on a daily basis.

Dejan Levi