42% by 2020

The Tyndall Centre for Climate Change have been calling for steep CO2 reduction targets for many years, with a combination of scientific analysis and pragmatism. In today's Guardian, they stripped the data bare, and laid out the need to achieve a 42% in CO2 emissions in the UK by 2020. That's just over 2600 'work days' away from here. The majority of civil servants haven't had the experience or training to help them work out the scale of change that's needed, which means that they're going to need help from anyone who has.

Statements from the TYndall Centre such as "official advice used to set the budget is "naïvely optimistic" and will not stop dangerous climate change" and "The government should aim to cut emissions 42% by 2020" need to be acted on, by us, now.

As a start point, we need to build outline plans to give a rough indication of what's needed by when to achieve the scale of change needed, and then work out the detail. The key action is to get started - Hay on Earth is coming not a moment too soon; our biggest challenge is to ensure that the plans and action that develop over those four days are broadcast far and wide.