If I had asked for a better visual analogy of the transition to a low carbon economy I wouldn’t have got one. Standing in a blustery field in Oxfordshire I was presented with a sight that highlighted the juxtaposition of old and new, pessimism and optimism, dirty and clean, the past and future of our energy economy.

photo: tarop

If you are one of the 12,000 people who have already signed up to London’s shiny new Barclay’s Cycle Hire scheme I’d recommend a crash helmet is not the only bit of safety gear you invest in. You might want to think about picking up a gas mask too.

Shortly before joining ClientEarth I found myself standing on a verge in Germany, hiding behind a tree, dressed as a carbon emission. To the average onlooker, I was a young man who had lost his mind. To the trained eye, however, I was protesting against loopholes in the Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry strand of the UN climate negotiations that would allow developed nations to ‘hide’ emissions through logging. Luckily for me and my colleagues in the UK Youth Climate Coalition, all dressed as greenhouse gases, we were being passed by lots of trained eyes:  the negotiators attending the UN climate talks in Bonn in preparation for the Copenhagen follow-up in Mexico this December.