IF you were looking for someone with particularly good reason to worry about global warming, Yvo de Boer would be a pretty good candidate. The former United Nations climate change supremo oversaw the failure of the Copenhagen conference 15 months ago. He has previously talked about his depression following the gruelling 11-day event, a few months before he quit the organisation. Last week he told the Sunday Herald he remains deeply unsure of our ability to overcome the problem. I am worried about lack of global resolve to come to grips with these issues in time, he said. 42 developed countries and 40 developing countries have made commitments, but they are nowhere near enough to get this issue under control. I see a lack of global leadership. I don t think in the foreseeable future President Obama is going to be able to move the climate change agenda in the US. If the US doesn t show greater ambition then China, which has overtaken the US to become the largest emitter, will be less inclined to show ambition beyond a certain point. If China and the US fail, there will be a lot of resistance from European industry. We need to see the international community moving together and that requires leadership. Having visited Glasgow to attend last week s Scottish Renewables Conference, De Boer paid tribute to the country s potential as a world leader in clean technology. a former Dutch civil servant who lives in the south of Holland, he is also buoyed by signs that companies have become much more environmentally responsible than in the past. The business community in many parts of the world is not waiting for governments but seeing real imperatives to have a climate change agenda, he said. There is a bottom line focus on reducing costs by being more efficient. There is more emphasis on the effect [of bad environmental behaviour] on reputation. They are putting products with greater social value into markets.