I have watched the COP29 conference with increasing gloom. Sadly I have come to the conclusion that Democracies cannot deliver climate change mitigation. If left to politicians or capitalism will we all certainly suffer from catastrophic climate change effects.

One country that is making changes that will have an effect is China, without the shackles of cross party negotiations or the influence of lobbyist companies, they have made huge strides in changing to clean and renewable energy.

It’s true that they have opened a couple of coal fired power stations recently but only as an interim measure, whilst simultaneously rolling out huge renewable energy projects. The last Tory government claimed to be doing the same, but all they did was the new fossil fuel projects whilst holding back meaningful change towards renewable energy. China however is now the world leader in electric vehicle manufacturing and sales within China of EV’s are booming and are a real threat to the slow and lacklustre approach of most western based car makers.

In the UK a local council will have a full page story when they have bought one electric bus, whilst in China they replace whole fleets of diesel busses overnight.

We have a lot to learn from China, western governments are still enslaved to fossil fuel money and influence, China has no such ties, she does what she needs to do and should in my opinion be praised and supported for her efforts.

What good is the right to vote if the planet dies. Americas looks like its democracy is about to die but it will be a dictatorship lead by an idiot who believes that climate change is a hoax to damage the American fossil fuel industry, even as massive record breaking hurricanes devastate Florida and huge fires burn in California.

Trump is going to make things worse. We should now look to China for leadership whilst the western leaders talk and talk and fail to do anything effective.