In his speech to the Labour Party Conference yesterday, Gordon Brown signalled support for the 80% cuts in CO2 emissions we've all been calling for.
Mr Brown said he had asked the Climate Change Committee - which is considering whether such a large cut is feasible - to report by next month instead of the end of the year.
It will allow the Committee to make its recommendation while the Climate Change Bill is still before Parliament and in time for the target figure to be raised significantly.
The move was immediately welcomed by environmental groups who have been pressing for much bigger cuts in emissions.
Take some time to view this educational film by Leo Murray from the Royal College of Art. It explains the findings of the last IPPC climate change report using skillful animated visuals:
From the 1st October 2008 a new law takes effect that requires a home owner to obtain planning permission for laying non-permeable hard surfaces (often for a vehicle) above a certain size over front gardens. The purpose of this new law is to reduce the risk of flooding during heavy downpours of rain, the frequency of such events is expected to increase as a result of climate change.
In the final programme of the series Dr Iain Stewart looks to the future and climate modelling. He starts in the past and early methods of climate modelling using a bowl of liquid and a Bunsen burner. Dr Stewart shows that the advent of computers allowed more sophisticated modelling. The programme shows that James Hansens computer model was proven correct when a volcano eruption changed the climate for a number of years, reducing the temperature by half a degree in the US and Europe.
The predictions for the future are for gradual warming, but what the computer models can not predict is an unforseen catastrophic change, the sort of cange that is recorded in the Greenland ice core records. The possibility exists that a massive sudden change could occur since this has happened in the past.
Business leaders including directors at Tesco, Lloyds TSB and other top high street names have urged Gordon Brown to drop his slowly, slowly approach to tackling global warming and go for "transformational change", saying the prime minister should not be held back by fears over the current financial crisis.
However, the involvement in the initiative of BAA, owner of Heathrow, and the energy firm E.ON has angered environmentalists, who said the companies that encouraged flying and built coal-fired power stations showed "hypocrisy of the purest strain".
A new report shows that Arctic sea ice is at the second lowest extent ever recorded. It has fallen by more than half since 1985 and both the Northwest and Northeast passages are navigable by sea.
