YES, 1998 was a very hot year. According to both Nasa and the Met Office / University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit, it was the hottest year in the entire 20th century. But it is below average when compared to the 21st. Indeed 1998 is the only year of the last century to be warmer than the coldest year of this century. So the answer to the first of Dr Charles Wardrop’s questions (Letters, September 4) is simple. Today the idea that there has been a 20-year pause in global warming is fiction, on a par with suggesting Harold won decisively at Hastings while smoking cigarettes that cure cancer before riding his unicorn over the edge of the flat earth.

If we start at 1998, the pace of warming has been 0.19°C per decade. If we start at 1999, it is 0.22°C per decade. Neither of these numbers can possibly be described as a “pause”. If we go all the way back to 1880, the trend is only 0.07°C, so the rate has been accelerating. The science of carbon dioxide causing a greenhouse effect has been well known for a century.

The second question is more interesting. The UK, despite our aircraft carriers and nuclear weapons, is revealed as a practically insignificant player on the world stage, with a paltry 1.3 per cent of CO2 emissions. But while our proportion of CO2 output is small overall, it is above the per capita world average, and substantially above the world median. We are certainly part of the problem. Dr Wardrop might as well ask how Armstrong could possibly have made it to the Moon if the average man can barely jump a foot. The answer isn’t simply in individuals making small but tiny contributions turning off lights and recycling yoghurt pots, it will take a national effort, akin to the Apollo program, or a foreign war. And still we need an international alliance – but what was the last external threat that we successfully faced without one? The Battle of Largs?

The best hope is a significant tax on fossil fuel extraction, and a tariff on imports from all countries without one. Obviously far more effective if led by the EU, rather than the UK with our tiny portion of world trade. China and India would sign up rather than face the tariff, and Australia would have no one to export to. Even the current isolationist President of the United States believes that tariff barriers will force smaller countries to the negotiating table, and the US is far smaller than a EU-China trade alliance.

I trust that Dr Wardrop will refrain from writing about a pause in global warming until we next have a year colder than 1998 was. I do not expect it in my lifetime.

Alan Ritchie,

72 Waverley Street, Glasgow.

YOU live in a three-storey sandstone terrace in Glasgow. The Scottish Government is intending to cease the sales of petrol and diesel cars and light commercial vehicles by 2032. On the assumption that this will be phased in well beforehand, do you prepare in advance and hurry out to an electrical wholesaler to buy a very long 30 amp cable with the appropriate connectors at either end, or do you book a space at your local fire station goodness knows how many miles away, and bag a space ("Car charging points and 100 green buses on the way", The Herald, September 4)? Even if you are lucky enough to be able to park relatively close to your property, you will require to check your home insurance if they cover for your cable if anyone trips over it. You will also have many a sleepless night worrying that your next leccy bill does not have a spike in it as someone else has borrowed your supply overnight.

Why stop at fire stations for an overnight charge as surely there will be ample vacant space at police stations and ambulance depots, even greater ones at hospitals overnight?

Sorry, I forgot that the fire engines, police cars and ambulances will be taking up the charging bays to top up their own flat batteries whilst their staff go to call-outs on public transport.

George Dale,

21 Oakwood Drive, Beith.