Scientists at the Met Office are responding to the unprecedented attack on the science of climate change by putting together a statement in support of the overwhelming scientific evidence demonstrating global warming, that will be signed by many in the science community in the UK. I think the list of signatories will be long.  

The timing of the attacks is significant, and the sceptics, emboldened by a handful of hacked emails are being very orchestrated. The question is who is behind all this. The Times and the Telegraph are running stories today suggesting that the FSB might be the culprit behind the attacks. (Well, thankfully no climate scientist has tasted polonium - yet). Apparently the hacking originated from the Siberian town of Tomsk, also known for originating other notorious cyber attacks, such as on Estonia and Georgia. And the data was hosted by a company called Tomline, allegedly with a shadowy track record. 

In Russia there’re many IT companies operating as hackers-for-hire working for international cyber terrorism, so ultimately anybody could be behind the attack. It is clear though that it has taken some effort. 13 years of data and thousands of emails have been processed, read and selected snippets fed to the world’s media just in the nick of time for the Copenhagen talks.  

The access and echo that the stories have received in some of the world’s most influential media is also significant. Today Forbes.com runs a battery of stories fuelling the sceptic discourse, and bloggers in the Telegraph and Republican media and networks are running similar stories. Obviously no one is suggesting that these media are bankrolled by a conspiracy of sceptics, but there are many corporate interests to keep the fossil fuel tap open, rather than closed, and quite simply the largest and most successful companies in the world have made their fortunes out of oil, gas and coal. It is not inconceivable that some of these interests are backing the access to the media that the sceptic discourse is enjoying.  

In order cases, such as the Spectator in the UK, it’s pure ignorance.  

The surprising thing of all this is that we’ve had a relatively easy ride so far. It’d be naïve to think that countries like Saudi Arabia, Russia and corporate interests in the United States will stand by while the climate change movement succeeds in securing an international agreement that will undermine their key financial interests. Saudi Arabia and Russia make no secrets of their intention to derail Copenhagen but maybe this is simply a taste of things to come, and the heat is bound to go up and gloves to come off as we move forward. 

After all American oil companies succeeded in putting a stop on the electric car industry for many years, and they are certainly not above dirty tricks. I think now things are different – they know that the scientific evidence is overwhelming and even they need a planet to live on, so there is a limit to the resistance that the oil and gas industry will put up, but they won’t go without a fight. 

It’s good to keep the focus on the right place and away from these distractions.  Nicholas Stern from the LSE writes today on the FT an excellent article emphasising that business should be the driving force to take our economies to decarbonisation (and to fund it also in developing countries). This is key, because our governments will certainly not be able to afford it.