mental writer Crispin Tickell once spelt out his recipe for avoiding dangerous climate change: “Leadership from the top, pressure from below – and an instructive disaster.” Perhaps a combination of the fi rst two elements may spare us the need for the third.

Once the decision is taken at the highest level (of a country, city or other group) it can be invaluable to have another senior fi gure to champion climate neutrality, addressing senior management and workers alike. “Senior” need not mean a traditionally respectable pillar of society: the term can include anybody who is widely known and popular. Footballers and pop stars make ideal champions.

Then comes the stage of assessing the situation by counting total emissions and analysing their source – making an inventory, in other words. At least as important is to analyse the options available for reducing them. With those results it is possible to set priorities and targets. To what extent can we reduce our own emissions and how much do we have to offset? How long should it take (Norway had originally set itself a deadline of 2050 and recently moved it to 2030)? Where will policymakers get the biggest bang for their buck – where should resources and efforts be concentrated to achieve the best and most visible results? And what yardsticks will be needed to measure progress towards targets (this question is covered in more detail below)? And who will guarantee that progress really is being made?

After settling the broad principles, the next stage is to develop a detailed action plan which puts fl esh on the bones of the strategic outline. This plan will include a timeframe, responsibilities, the targets to be achieved and the indicators used to gauge progress.

Implementing the plan, the moment when deliberation becomes action, comes next, and it has to be accompanied by systematic monitoring of the process. This in turn is followed by evaluation of the results and compilation of a list of suggested improvements, with results documented and reported, so that experience gained of what does (and does not) work is shared with those who can put it to good use.

Finally, with all that completed, the cycle starts all over again, only this time incorporating the lessons learnt. Science and technology move on, regula-

THE CYCLE KICK THE HABIT 55
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