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Britain (and most of the world) was in “shock” about climate change for a few years. But the credit crunch and the economic recession have now caused a climate “trance”. A trance? In this, of all years. A new global deal on emissions targets needs to be reached at December’s UN climate change conference in Copenhagen.

Not long after he was elected president, Barack Obama spoke of the “shock” and “trance” syndrome, that brings panic and then paralysis over America’s reliance on fossil fuels. Andrew Revkin, of the New York Times’ Dot Earth blog, has traced two international climate “shocks” in the last century. The first shock started in the summer of 1988, with the northern drought and James Hansen’s first dire warnings about global warming. It was followed by a trance, as energy prices fell and the first Persian Gulf War erupted. The ensuing trance lasted for much of the 1990s.

The second shock began with the European heat wave of 2003 and intensified from 2005 to 2007 as Hurricane Katrina and “An Inconvenient Truth” put climate change in the headlines. The peak was reached in 2007, as the fourth IPCC report was published.

Evidence of a new British (and, possibly, Europe-wide) climate trance has piled up over the last year. People have become much more worried about their jobs, cash flows and house prices. In January 2007, Ipsos MORI found that 19 per cent of voters saw the environment as a top issue facing Britain. By the end of 2008, just 6 per cent held the same view. Over the same period, the proportion seeing the economy as a top issue went from 14 per cent to 66 per cent.

The media may also be falling into a climate trance. Maxwell Boykoff of Oxford University, who studies the way 50 newspapers in 20 countries (including the UK) cover climate change, told DotEarth last month: “Apart from that Oceania blip in mid-2008, it does seem like stagnation or decreasing coverage.”

Consequently, politicians may be less inclined to take forward “costly” climate policies. For years, the EU has been a world leader on climate change policies. But some members have become more worried about the possible implications for their industries and economies. December’s European summit kept the targets to cut emissions by 20 per cent (compared with 1990 levels) by 2020, with an offer to raise this to 30 per cent if other countries joined in on an agreement. But the EU emissions trading scheme will now include big concessions and opt-outs for heavy industries. Last month’s big UN climate change meeting in Poznan showed how hard it may be to reach a deal at Copenhagen.

Those concerned about the future of the planet need not despair, just yet. Whilst the climate “shock” may be over, the last year also showed that a 1990s style “trance” simply will not be an option.