This meeting was addressed by Sir David King, the Government's chief scientific adviser and Lord Oxborough, former chairman of Shell Oil.

Some worrying forecasts for the future were discussed. For example, it is known that the planet has experienced extremes of hot and cold periods and the relation of carbon dioxide levels during those periods is known going back for millions of years.

The polar ice sheets have disappeared during hot periods but atmospheric carbon levels have been fairly stable between 220 parts per million in cold periods to 280 parts per million in hot periods.

The relationship between man’s activities and atmospheric carbon levels is fairly obvious because the level has increased sharply over the last 200 years and now stands at 380 parts per million and is now rising at 2 pts/m per year.

It is thought that if carbon dioxide levels reach 450 parts per million the Greenland ice sheets would melt and these alone would cause sea levels to rise 5.5 metres.

Most carbon dioxide growth is coming from China and India. China is building a new coal-fired power station every five days and they do not use de-sulphurisation or carbon capture equipment. Energy reserves from coal are far greater than that from oil but demand for oil is sharply increasing due to the booming economies of China and India. Indeed, if car ownership in China reaches the same level per head of population as America, the entire current world production of oil would be insufficient to satisfy the Chinese motorist alone.

The scale of the problem of how man’s contribution to C02 production can be scaled down is cause for serious concern and action is becoming very urgent if catastrophic climate change is to be avoided for future generations.

Alternative fuels from food production waste were discussed but it is clear that producing crops purely for bio fuels is a very inefficient use of farming land and technology alone will not solve the problem and behavioural changes will also be essential.