Lord Stern is hopeful

• Ben Adair | Dec 17, 2009 3:30 PM
• 1 comments

Andy Revkin just posted this quick and dirty — and extremely optimistic — interview with Sir Nicholas Stern. He sees a lot of hope down the final stretch.

He also had a very interesting blog post earlier in the week about the missing “P” word at the talks.

The importance of population size in gauging emissions trends was raised by Chinese officials here, who noted that their one-child policies reduced births by 400 million and emissions of carbon dioxide by some 18 million tons a year. In the first week of the meeting, Zhao Baige, vice minister of the National Population and Family Planning Commission, said the policies had some mixed consequences, with the country now aging and facing a paucity of girls. “I’m not saying that what we have done is 100 percent right, but I’m sure we are going in the right direction and now 1.3 billion people have benefited,” she said.