What a difference three months makes. Back in November, the world broadly agreed that emissions of carbon dioxide were heating up the planet and that we needed to do something about it, even if we couldn’t agree exactly what. And though we’d had the usual pre-summit rollercoaster ride of dire predictions and naive exhortations (yes, I plead guilty to some of those), even hardheaded types dared to hope that Copenhagen might produce the basis of a global climate treaty.

As late as 7 December, 56 newspapers around the world could declare in a common, Guardian-led editorial: “The politicians in Copenhagen have the power to shape history’s judgment on this generation: one that saw a ­challenge and rose to it, or one so stupid that we saw calamity coming but did nothing to avert it.”

DECC map of UK carbon emissions Photograph: Public Domain

Public sector greenhouse gas emissions rose by 6.25% in 2008 despite overall UK emissions falling by almost 2%, analysis of government figures showed today.

While sectors such as energy supply, agriculture, transport, businesses and industrial processes saw emissions drop, the public sector saw emissions rise from 9.6m tonnes of CO2 equivalent (Mt CO2e) to 10.2 MtCO2e. Housing was the only other sector with growing greenhouse gases, with emissions from domestic heating rising from 81.8 to 84.4 MtCO2e, or 3.1%.

Simon Hughes, Liberal Democrat shadow secretary of state for energy and climate changes, speaking at the Guardian Public Services Summit today, said it was a scandal that the one part of the economy directly controlled by the government had seen its emissions rise while other sectors fell. “How can the Labour government expect to be taken seriously at home and around the world if it can not get its own emissions under control? Last year the government rejected my motion to sign the public sector up to the 10:10 campaign. Either Labour has a lack of ambition or a lack of confidence or both,” Hughes added.

US federal government and agencies have pledged to cut their carbon emissions by 28% by 2020. Photograph: Corbis

Barack Obama used his presidential authority to help advance his climate change agenda today, announcing that the US federal government and agencies would cut their giant carbon footprints by 28% by 2020.

As the consensus on climate change comes under sustained attack following more revelations from leaked emails and a climbdown on melting glaciers from the UN climate agency we ask: can the trust in the science be restored and how solid is the consensus?

So scientists are human after all. They are no different from bankers, politicians, lawyers, estate agents and perhaps even journalists. They cheat. They make mistakes. They suppress truth and suggest falsity, especially when a cheque or a plane ticket is on offer. As for self-criticism, that is for you, not me.

I am just ready to believe that the antics of the climate change scientists, revealed in this week’s Guardian and elsewhere, have no impact on the facts of global warming. But then I must rely on those same scientists to say so. The Yamal-12 larches may be dodgy, the hockey stick limp and the Amazon stats subject to re-evaluation. The date of 2035 for a Himalayan apocalypse may have been a misprint for 2350 and 40,000 comments didn’t spot it. But so what, they all say? The world is coming to an end because we are scientists and, like Nostradamus, we know.

The chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Rajendra Pachauri, has come under fire over his handling of a false claim about melting glaciers. Photograph: Saeed Khan/AFP/Getty Images

International environment and development groups have given conflicting opinions over whether Rajendra Pachauri, the chairman of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), should resign over criticism of his handling of a false claim about melting glaciers in the panel’s landmark 2007 report. They also fear a drop in the confidence in climate science could undermine governments’ resolve to address global warming, with Greenpeace saying a new leader of the IPCC could restore confidence in the UN panel.