I spent an interesting hour last Friday morning having coffee with a neighbour, David Rose of the Mail on Sunday, talking about climate change. He was preoccupied by the apparent "lack of warming" over the past decade or so (more accurately, lack of surface warming), and wondered if it was leading me, as a climate scientist, to revise my expectations for the future.

I explained how recent observations were indeed suggesting that very high values of the so-called "climate sensitivity" (the long-term warming we should expect on doubling carbon dioxide), values greater than 5C or so, were looking less likely. And how the current rate of warming was looking unrealistic in some of the higher-response models in the current round of comparisons.

But I also explained that doubling pre-industrial carbon dioxide concentrations, which we are almost certain to do now, was just the beginning. Increasing use of fossil carbon at the current rate would drive atmospheric concentrations towards four times pre-industrial figures by 2100. So even if the "climate sensitivity" is as low as 2C, as some lines of evidence now suggest, we would still be looking at 4C plus by the early 22nd century.

The reason is that there is plenty of fossil carbon down there, and we keep finding more: the Japanese have just demonstrated how to mine sub-ocean methane clathrates. And as other carbon pools fill up, an increasing fraction of the carbon we dump in the atmosphere stays there, in effect, forever (unless our grandchildren decide to pump it out again).

David accepted all of this – I quote: "Of course, I accept that CO2 emissions have to come down," – while arguing that the current government's emphasis on short-term measures like promoting windfarms is largely irrelevant. I could not agree more. I can see a case for windfarms to avoid over-dependence on Russian gas, but we shouldn't kid ourselves that they are solving climate change.

We parted on good terms, agreeing what was needed was a sensible discussion of effective alternatives to the government's expensive and largely ineffective climate policies. A useful hour, you might think. Then I find David quoting me in the Mail on Sunday as saying that "until recently he believed that the world might be on course for a catastrophic temperature rise of more than five degrees this century" and "adding that warming is likely to be significantly lower".

I have argued for years that the odds on a high climate sensitivity are largely irrelevant to the warming we should expect over the coming century, and I certainly never suggested to David that my assessment of the odds on any particular level of warming by 2100 had changed. Sure, current rates of warming in the highest-response models are looking iffy, for reasons that may or may not be relevant to their forecasts for 2100, but at the rate emissions are rising, you don't need a particularly high climate response to get to 4C by 2100 and 5C not long thereafter. The only time I mentioned 5C in our conversation was in the context of the long-term response to doubling CO2.

Who loses from this kind of thing? Well, there is no denying it makes me look a bit of an idiot. As one of my colleagues (who had best remain nameless) put it, "serves you right for talking to these ****s." But if climate scientists refuse to talk to Mail on Sunday correspondents, then their only information sources left are bloggers and David Whitehouse.

As we discovered from the Ofcom's investigation into Channel 4's Great Global Warming Swindle, journalists can say what they like about science: it only matters (a little) if a particular scientist is misrepresented. No doubt the luminaries of the PCC (or its successor – who, you may be sure, won't include any scientists) would regard the distinction between "warming on CO2-doubling" and "warming by 2100" as sufficiently confusing and technical to be not worth wasting their time over. It is impossible to libel mother nature.

Many Guardian readers might be inclined to shrug "who cares what Mail readers think, anyway?" Well, I care. We all deserve an informed and democratic discussion about what to do about climate change, whatever our political persuasion. How many Mail readers realise that one of our government's top climate policy advisers, Dieter Helm, is recommending what, to them, would be an eye-wateringly high carbon tax. This might do wonders for the deficit (interested, George?) but, I would argue, won't solve the problem (we didn't save the ozone layer by taxing CFCs).

This is an interesting discussion: subsidies for renewables versus carbon tax versus (my personal preference) upstream regulation of the fossil fuel industry to drive the development of carbon capture. Mail readers should be part of it. But they are firmly excluded by headlines dismissing the whole of climate science as a "great green con" – despite their correspondent certainly giving me the impression he understands the problem better than that. Maybe he didn't, but he certainly seemed sensible talking to me.

I am perfectly prepared to believe David sent in an accurate article that was then hacked to pieces in the newsroom. Any time he wants to continue the conversation about how we solve the problem of climate change, which we both agree needs solving (after all, we live in the same flood plain), he is more than welcome. I owe him a coffee.

• This article was amended on 21 March 2013. Ofcom investigated the Great Global Warming Swindle, not the Press Complaints Commission.