James Hansen ... It doesn’t help to promise to try to be better in the future

"They talk like they realise there’s a problem, but they’re not taking the only action that would be effective. Unless you make the price of fossil fuels honest, by including their cost to society, people will just keep burning them. It doesn’t help to promise to try to be better in the future, because even if somebody or some nation will reduce their fossil fuel use, other things being equal that just reduces the demand for the fuel and somebody else will burn it. So unless you have an cross-the-board rising fee or tax on carbon we are not going to solve the problem.”