Don't panic over U.N. climate change report

The Dutch farmers protest shows what's wrong with environmental policy-making. Politicians love to make nice sounding, green promises, but they have no intention of actually implementing highly expensive policies. Eventually, the Dutch government's hand was forced by environmentalists through a court case.

Switch to energy-efficient light bulbs, wash your clothes in cold water, eat less meat, recycle more, and buy an electric car: we are being bombarded with instructions from climate campaigners, environmentalists, and the media about the everyday steps we all must take to tackle climate change. Unfortunately, these appeals trivialize the challenge of global warming and divert our attention from the huge technological and policy changes that are needed to combat it.

Copenhagen, Denmark’s capital, wants to be the world’s first CO2-neutral city by 2025. But, as many other well-meaning cities and countries have discovered, cutting CO2 significantly is more difficult than it seems, and may require quite a bit of creative accounting.