According to the International Energy Agency’s annual report, published in November, the world is on course for a long-term temperature increase of 3.6°C – way above the UN’s 2°C global-warming limit.

Yet the energy sector, which produces two-thirds of greenhouse gas emissions, received global subsidies of $544 billion for fossil fuel production in 2012 – far exceeding the $101 billion that went to renewable energy production.

Climate change is a global issue. So what part is the UK playing in the solution? The government’s underlying policy of striving for energy efficiency is right: reduce consumption and so reduce bills. But we should be worried when something so vital as energy policy becomes part of a populist political game: Labour pledges a two-year price freeze, so members of the coalition propose cutting green levies to help reduce gas and electricity bills. Energy policy should be sustainable, not made ‘on the hoof’. This is where hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, comes in: low-cost, domestically produced energy would be a great boost to the UK economy and enable us to afford and embrace energy efficiency and low-carbon technologies.

Fracking has been employed for more than 60 years, with over 2.5 million wells worldwide to date. We hear scare stories about the chemicals being pumped into the ground during the process, but the only additive currently used by UK-based Cuadrilla is polyacrylamide (friction reducer), which we are more than happy to use in face creams and other cosmetics. Another chemical the company is approved to use by the Environment Agency is hydrochloric acid – feared in the fracking process, but used on a daily basis to treat our swimming pools.

Sadly, there is no perfect way to source energy. We are faced with a number of unattractive options and nothing is risk-free. It’s a vast over-simplification, but wouldn’t we all prefer to see our favourite Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty covered in wind turbines if that meant saving thousands of lives elsewhere in the world? I’m not in favour of the reckless drilling of holes, but human beings must come first. Climate change damages our planet and its people – we cannot ignore it. Some people seize upon the return of sea ice to the Arctic as proof that global warming is a myth, yet climate change is not about one-off observations but about looking at trends over a period of time. When you look at the graphs – and the bigger picture – Arctic sea ice is still receding.

In November, the UN’s Warsaw Climate Change Conference approved an ‘international mechanism for loss and damage associated with climate change impacts’ (Decision CP.19), a tacit acknowledgement of the need to channel cash and resources from those causing climate change to those suffering its consequences. Sadly, the conference failed to resolve the ongoing dispute between developed and developing countries about how much carbon each can emit. I suspect it is of little comfort to those made homeless by Typhoon Haiyan, the deadliest Philippine typhoon on record, that global leaders bicker while fossil fuels burn.

If the UK is to take action on climate change while remaining competitive on the world stage, the landowning fraternity must work with the fracking industry to get shale gas out of the ground and into our economy as quickly as possible – but in the least disruptive way and with minimum damage to the environment. Confrontation is not the way forward. The sooner this positive dialogue is embraced, the greater the chance of the damage being limited, the countryside benefiting and the UK having an energy policy we can be proud of.