Climate: China's seriousness is our best hope

As a young boy growing up in the North of England, each weekday morning I'd go to my grandmother's house. We'd drink cups of tea and chat about such trivialities as trouble a nascent 8-year-old's mind, until the time came for me to walk up the village to primary school.

For the life of me, I'm sorry to say, I can't remember much of what we discussed. But there's one conversation that I will always recall. One day, I declared to my grandma that when I grew up, I would move to America and what's more, I even promised to take her with me.

It was the 1990s, the pre-internet era, and all I knew of the United States was what I had learned from TV shows or books. It seemed a wondrous place, filled with opportunity. "The land of the free and the home of the brave".