Friends of Europe's Green Week summit on climate change kicked off with a session about the role of the media in changing attitudes about the issue. The problem is not a lack of information, said Franny Armstrong, Director of The Age of Stupid, it is that people are not acting on that information.

One issue is the very urgency of dealing with climate change, which makes much reporting doom-laden and sensationalist, encouraging people to think it is too big a problem for them to deal with.

While urgent wake-up calls, such as Armstrong's film, are needed, there must also be positive stories, said Claus Sørensen, European Commission Director General for Communication. Yet it is striking that, despite public interest and concern on the problem, politicians are not being held to account in member states, said Friends of Europe Secretary General Giles Merritt.

 

Day II - Wednesday 24 June

Session I: Can a green business revolution bring us out of recession?

This session asked whether a green business revolution could bring us out of recession. While there is much that business can do, it was agreed that changing consumer attitudes is key. The recession is an ideal opportunity to weed out unsustainable products, said Gerard van Harten, President of Dow Benelux, but what is missing is any sense of urgency, said Nick Mabey, Founding Director and Chief Executive Officer of Third Generation Environmentalism (E3G). "There are too many targets and not enough passion," he added.

Session II: What can be asked of emerging economies?

The role of emerging economies in dealing with climate change remains controversial, but there are signs of a convergence between developed and developing countries around the view that climate change, energy security and technology are all key aspects of the problem, said Jos Delbeke, the European Commission Deputy Director General for  the Environment.

Both the progress that has been made and the distance left to travel were summed up by Tony Surridge, Head of the Centre for Carbon Capture & Storage at the South African National Energy Resources Institute (SANERI). "The developed countries are trying to protect their position – they do not want to go backwards. The developing countries are trying to protect their position – they want to go forwards."

Session III: The EU, U.S. and China: Shared or competing interests?

The final session examined the EU/US/China relationship, asking if they had shared or competing interests. To an extent, it emerged, the EU is a bystander as the world's two biggest emitters come to grips with climate change. This is partly because the US and China have a long way to go to catch up with Europe, although they are really starting to understand what climate change will mean, said Taiya Smith, Visiting Scholar in the Energy and Climate Program of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, DC. However, Europe's leadership is still needed to ensure a rigorous deal at Copenhagen. "We believe the Copenhagen meeting is a decisive moment," said Michael Starbæk Christensen, Senior Adviser on Climate Change in the Office of the Prime Minister of Denmark.