Professor Richardson, the chair of the Danish government’s Climate Commission and a vice dean at the University of Copenhagen, is a marine biologist, but when it comes to energy, she says it’s a matter of math.

“It took nature a million years to make the amount of fossil fuels humans use in a year,” she explains.

“The experts say we have enough oil to last us 40 years, but whether there is oil enough for 20, 40 or 80 years, it doesn’t change the fact that we need to start using new types of energy that are based on multiple renewable sources. But that’s not the same as saying the nations of the world need to lower their standard of living."

“On top of that, we’re going to need to counter climate change by reducing the high levels of CO2 emissions that come from burning fuels such as coal, gas and oil.”

Industrialised countries pull their weightIndustrialised countries, Richardson believes, have a moral obligation to help the developing world reduce its emissions.

“More than 60 per cent of the greenhouse gasses currently in the atmosphere that are causing climate change were emitted by Western countries. That’s why we have this moral problem of developing countries being asked to cut their emissions, even though they still lie far below our own, and even though it prevents them from making the same progress we have. We have an obligation to let them skip a few steps and to use the newest technology to set up energy systems based on renewables."

Key messagesRichardson also chaired the scientific panel that organised an International Climate Research Congress in Copenhagen in March 2009, which COWI co-sponsored.

The goal of the congress was to summarise the latest climate data. Its conclusions were divided into six key messages and printed in a 39-page synthesis report and published in eight languages: Arabic, Chinese, Danish, English, French, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish.

The purpose of the report, according to Richardson, is to pass on the latest scientific knowledge about climate change to the general public, as well as to negotiators and decision makers.