The less that political, community and business leaders talk about climate change, the more scope there is for scepticism to emerge Something is missing from the British general election campaign. Climate change had its 3.5 seconds of fame during the seven-way leaders? debate, but has barely been heard of since. Save for the occasional specialist hustings, and the odd supplementary manifesto, climate change ? allegedly the defining challenge of the 21st century ? is missing in action. But strangely, the problem seems largely one of style rather than substance. Putting the climate-sceptic UK Independence party to one side (the current Department for Energy and Climate Change would be abolished if they had their way), there are no shortage of climate policies in the parties? manifesto pledges. So while there appears to be a robust political consensus around the importance of climate change, it is a silent consensus ? which from the point of view of public engagement, may as well not be a consensus at all.

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