View image in fullscreen Paul Brown, former environment correspondent of the Guardian, 1991. Photograph: Don McPhee/The GuardianAs I came back, Thatcher was in New York warning the UN about the dangers of climate change. But this pattern of politicians learning the inconvenient truths of climate change and then falling short in the actions required to solve the problem has continued ever since. That summit saw the setup of the climate change convention, the biodiversity convention and much else, although it failed to do enough to protect forests. But as the decade progressed, the Conservatives were ousted in 1997 and then, as John Prescott became environment secretary, the environment news kept moving up the agenda.
