Such predictions, I wrote, “challenge some of global warming orthodoxy’s most cherished beliefs”, including the assertion that the north pole will be ice-free in summer by 2013. Latif told me that this is most unlikely to be realised. His work may not undermine the science of manmade warming, but it does challenge standard media representations of its imminent consequences.
David Rose
Oxford
• The flawed prediction that Himalayan glaciers are likely to disappear by 2035 (Report, 21 January), after the leaked emails from UEA, will be further ammunition to the deniers. But they mustn’t get too excited. This is not a lapse in climate science but a failure to implement the rigorous procedures that ensure that only substantiated evidence is published. The IPCC must recover from its embarrassment, get a grip and redouble its efforts to show that the evidence for human-induced climate change is real.
Nick Reeves
Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management
• If Jackie Ashley (Comment, 25 January) were interested in the Conservative record on green issues she would reflect that without my party’s leadership during this parliament Britain would not have had a Climate Change Act, we would have no feed-in tariffs for microgeneration, no smart meters, and no ban on unabated coal plants. In each case the government was forced to reverse its position to fall in with Conservative policy. It has yet to do so on building a third runway at Heathrow, providing energy efficiency improvements for every home, cutting government energy use by 10% during 2010 and approving carbon capture and storage demonstrations. There is not a single instance of this government being more progressive than the Conservative party on green issues.
Greg Clark MP
Shadow secretary of state for energy and climate change