Delegates queue to enter the United Nations climate change conference in Copenhagen. Photograph: Pawel Kopczynski/Reuters

As if the slog of summitry, disputes over the science and the haggling for cash were not enough, the politicians and advisers gathering at Copenhagen this week have one more huge obstacle: their voters.

Not that the public is against fighting climate change. From Iran to the US, polls show that voters want to tackle global warming, even if it costs money and jobs. Yet whenever a specific policy comes up – higher taxes on petrol or flying, say – public support melts away faster than you can say polar ice caps.

When you survey the trail of wreckage left by the climate emails crisis, three things become clear. The first is the tendency of those who claim to be the champions of climate science to minimise their importance. Those who have most to lose if the science is wrong have perversely sought to justify the secretive and chummy ethos that some of the emails reveal. If science is not transparent and accountable, it’s not science.

I believe that all supporting data, codes and programmes should be made available as soon as an article is published in a peer-reviewed journal. That anyone should have to lodge a freedom of information request to obtain them is wrong. That the request should be turned down is worse. That a scientist suggests deleting material that might be covered by that request is unjustifiable. Everyone who values the scientific process should demand complete transparency, across all branches of science.

It is important that members of the public can see the types of information scientists use to understand our weather and climate. The release of the Met Office HadCRUT temperature data is welcome because everyone will begin to see what the data looks like and what a big task it is to put it all together.

Anyone looking at the numbers will certainly be able to see trends and patterns in the data the same way scientists do as part of their analysis. And the more we can make publicly available, the better.

Throughout history human progress has arisen from the dream of achieving far-reaching change even when people have said it was beyond our grasp, and from the struggle to overcome obstacles even when they seem insurmountable.

Today we face a global challenge whose solution, for decades until now, has appeared beyond our reach – impossible, unaffordable and unworkable.

But catastrophic climate change is no more a matter of untameable fate than slavery, women’s oppression, mass unemployment or nuclear war. And over the next two weeks we have the chance to come together, as a truly global community, to take the first decisive action needed to change its course.