There are probably very few people outside China who have heard of Pan Yue, but if the planet is to have any chance of avoiding disastrous levels of global warming this is a name that environmentalists should get to know very quickly.
Pan is the deputy director of the state environmental protection agency in China, the world’s second largest producer of greenhouse gases. And though his country – as a developing nation – is not obliged by the Kyoto Protocol to cut emissions, he and his fellow underdogs are fighting a campaign to cut wasteful power consumption and increase the use of renewable energy.