“There is significantly more risk [from inaction] than we previously estimated… There’s no way the world can or should take these risks.”

Ronald Prinn of MIT, co-author of a new modelling study showing that the climatic consequences of business as usual could be twice as bad as expected.

“They’re hoping that if you ask for 1 per cent, you may get a small fraction of a per cent.”

China’s demand that industrialized countries cut emissions 40% by 2020 is not being taken seriously by anonymous policy wonks.

“Right now we’re probably seeing like 10 to 15 résumés a month. But back during Wall Street bonus time, we were seeing two to three times that.”

Evan Ard of the carbon brokerage Evolution Markets says Wall Street professionals have been scampering to join the few US carbon trading firms – especially after the year’s bonus season, when traders can make tracks with their fat checks.

“I’m sure that they’ve gone into a less-than-functional building, but… surely in the whole of central London they could have sourced an up-to-date office block that they could be proud of?”

Greg Clark, shadow climate change secretary of the UK Tory party, on the new Department for Energy and Climate Change receiving the lowest possible score for energy efficiency.