Speech by Rt Hon Hilary Benn MP at UK Mission to the United Nations: Climate change - what the world needs out of Bali - 24 September 2007
We meet here in New York, at the United Nations, as the United Nations, at the beginning of an autumn that I think will show whether we are serious or not about the greatest challenge we have ever faced as human beings - the survival of our planet.
Climate change is the ultimate expression of our interdependence.
Its effects will be felt by everyone of us in every corner of the globe.
No country can deal with it alone.
So what I want to talk about today is how we face up to this challenge, and what we must now do together in the next four months.
The debate about the science is over. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has an unrivalled reputation across the world and its message to the United Nations is very stark and very clear.
We are causing climate change by our actions. The threat to our shared security and prosperity is real and acute. The window of opportunity to prevent dangerous climate change is closing rapidly. And we must act now.
The economic message is equally stark. Doing nothing will cost us far more than dealing with the problem now. And there is also an economic opportunity. We have the technology and the resources to make a rapid transition to a global low carbon economy. We only need the political will.
Before I became the Secretary of State for the Environment three months ago, I spent three and a half years as the International Development Secretary. And I saw the impact that climate change is already having: in Bangladesh, in Malawi, in Sudan, and in Somalia where last year I visited a place called Wajid.
Eleven thousand people had moved to Wajid because of the drought. They were living in the most pitiful shelters I have seen in my life - made of turned over twigs covered in scraps of clothing and plastic from the town rubbish tip. Waiting. Waiting for rain - to see if it would rain again where they had come from.
On my first day in this job, I saw how dangerous climate change could be for Britain. In Doncaster and Hull, in the north of England, we experienced the heaviest rain for decades. There were serious floods, submerging entire streets.
And this week, as we look to Africa, we see many countries - from Senegal in the West to Ethiopia in the East - suffering even worse floods. Another sign that it is the poorest and the most vulnerable who will suffer most from climate change. Although avoiding dangerous climate change may not be a Millennium Development Goal - yet - if we fail to do so then we will certainly not achieve the MDGs.
This is just the start.
What are we going to do when people start fighting, not over politics but about water?
What are we going to do when people arrive at our shores fleeing not political persecution but environmental catastrophe?
What are we going to do when the people to whom we sell our goods can’t buy from us any more because they are swimming for their lives?
Not enough water. Too much water. Rising temperatures. Rising sea levels. This is the future of our planet unless we act now.
Two weeks ago I attended my first international meeting on climate change in Berlin - the Gleneagles Dialogue. Around the table were people with lots of experience who had been to scores of meetings. And as I sat there and listened and contributed three things struck me.
No-one argued about the nature of the problem. Everyone recognised that it is an economic and political, as well as an environmental, issue, regardless of the history. And everybody knew that it falls to all of us to deal with it. So someone might ask, if they were sitting at the meeting - what are you waiting for, if you all agree that is the problem?
And for me that is the question; the one which I want to explore this morning. I want to set out the issues as I, and others see them, and to suggest how we can make progress.
The first task is to decide where responsibility lies, and who is to take action. That’s easy, because the UN process must be central.
But because this is such an important problem, we should welcome - and I do welcome - every effort to foster international action. I’ve mentioned the UK-initiated Gleneagles Dialogue. There is the US Major Economies initiative; the annual Ministerial Dialogue started in Greenland in 2005 and due to be held in Argentina next year; the World Bank’s Clean Energy Investment Framework; and of course the Secretary-General’s initiative, which I welcome enormously, in organising today’s event, and the fact that climate change is this week’s theme for the UN General Assembly .
All of these will play a vital role in helping us to generate the political will that is required, but as every one of us knows, it will be at the Bali Conference in December that we will be judged.
Judged on our ability to show that we understand what’s needed: setting out clearly a plan to get from Bali to a global and comprehensive agreement, rooted in the UN Framework Convention, on a post-2012 framework that will avoid dangerous climate change, and to do all that by December 2009 in Copenhagen.
The UK has no doubt that doing all this is essential. I hope that today we will hear the same message from all the Heads of State and Government gathered here in New York, so that when we all meet in Bali, under the very welcome Indonesian Presidency of the Conference of all the Parties to the UN Convention, we are in no doubt about the task.
So far, so good. But, the big question that keeps us all awake at night is what should this agreement look like? So let me try.
The ultimate objective of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change requires at least a halving of global emissions by the middle of this century. Why ? Because we have to avoid dangerous temperature change; in the EU’s view no more than 2 degrees Celsius.
Once you have a clear objective you are working to - and it’s a good place to start, sharing agreement on the problem - and you know what parts per million concentration any given level of emissions will result in, then you can see whether all the commitments to reduce emissions are enough to avoid dangerous change. Currently, they are not.
So we will require: commitments to reduce emissions - new ones; the strengthening and extension of global carbon markets; the development, deployment and transfer of the necessary technology to reduce emissions; adaptation to deal with the consequences of climate change; action on deforestation; something to be done about emissions from international aviation and maritime transportation; and, last and not least, finance - money - to help make all these things happen.
If we are going to get a global agreement, developed countries must, of course, in the words of the 1992 Framework Convention, “take the lead” by agreeing deeper binding emission reductions.
We cannot say that often enough. And that means all of us, including the largest economy in the world - the United States of America - taking on binding reduction targets. It is inconceivable that dangerous climate change can be avoided unless this happens.
I say that recognising that a post-2012 international agreement will also need to address US and other countries' concerns about economic competitiveness. We are all concerned about the process of managing this change, but we have to deal with that while dealing with the problem in each making a fair contribution.
But even that will not be enough. So without constraining the right of all countries, enshrined in the Convention, to sustainable economic growth and development, it is equally important that all countries should, as the convention also states, act to “protect the climate system….on the basis of equity and in accordance with their common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities”.
The truth - and we might as well tell each other the truth - is that even if all developed countries became carbon-neutral by the middle of the century it would not be enough to stop dangerous climate change. All Parties need to be willing to make a fair and effective contribution.
In other words, every country - especially as they develop - will have to play a part. And one of the tasks that we are going to face in negotiations is working out what this contribution is going to look like and how it should take account of the very different stages of development of developing countries themselves. China’s CO2 emissions represent a very different challenge to those, say, of Malawi.
It will also mean that the Convention Dialogue should turn into a process that focuses on further development of, and negotiations on, the ideas brought forward in the Dialogue, such as those on contributions by developing countries, the positive incentives necessary to support and maximise their implementation and how the UNFCCC could be a catalyst for investment in technology and adaptation.
Of course, what we commit to internationally has to be based on what we can do at home. The one flows from the other.
In the UK we will this autumn introduce a Climate Change Bill - the first of its kind in the world. When agreed by our Parliament, we will be the first country to set itself a legally binding, long term framework to reduce emissions over the next forty five years and beyond; by at least 60% by 2050. It will lead the transition to a low carbon economy. And it will help us show that emissions reduction and prosperity can go hand-in-hand; after all the UK economy has grown by 28 % in the last 10 years on the one hand while greenhouse gas emissions have fallen by 7% on the other.
Europe is also leading. The EU has committed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20% by 2020, regardless of what happens in international negotiations. And we are prepared to go to a 30% reduction by 2020 as our contribution to a global and comprehensive agreement for the period beyond 2012 if others make their contribution.
Acting collectively now, rather than later or when it’s too late, would allow all Parties to start to establish more sustainable economies and to avoid being locked into high carbon emitting technologies.
Other countries are beginning to set out their views of what a global deal should look like. I was particularly interested by the recent proposals of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), a group which represents some of the countries most vulnerable to climate change which is affecting them on a daily basis.
Alongside a long term goal of well below 450 ppm, and 2 degrees Celsius, they have called for action by all major emitters within 10 to 15 years with developed countries taking the lead but major emitting developing countries also taking action to reduce their emissions trajectories, with assistance from the rest of the world. They believe that it is now time for a discussion of how to apply the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities” and how those responsibilities should change as the capability of countries changes.
They are of course right - we have to have this discussion.
During the recent Gleneagles Dialogue meeting I listened to the proposals of the Club de Madrid, - a group consisting of more than 66 former heads of Government. They recognised - and it’s a very interesting report - all of the things in my earlier list on binding commitments, carbon markets, etc, and their bold vision for a post-2012 agreement contains the building blocks necessary to generate investment in low-carbon technology and direct financial flows to those countries most in need.
I don’t agree with everything they propose - energy intensity targets for example don’t necessarily cut carbon emissions - but there is much here to inform the international discussion now underway.
What is clear to me from both the AOSIS and the Club de Madrid proposals is the need for a comprehensive and global agreement involving all countries, all sectors, all sources and all sinks. Whilst developed countries must continue to take the lead in reducing emissions, if we are to stabilise greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a safe level, the need for meaningful contributions from other countries is now absolutely clear. Many developing countries recognise this and are already taking significant action. And we need to provide the incentives necessary to increase this and to move to a low carbon society - a low carbon world.
I welcome the UNFCCC's detailed and comprehensive work on financing and investment flows that was discussed in August. Probably the most important message of this report is that mitigation is affordable, especially when one considers the costs of inaction - precisely Nick Stern’s message.
It reinforces what Nick Stern and the IPCC have been saying. Putting it into context, the report shows that the “additional costs related to mitigation and adaptation to climate change are small in relation to estimated global gross domestic product (GDP) (0.3-0.5 per cent) and global investment (1.1-1.7 per cent) in 2030”. This means that there is no reason why we, as a global community, should not commit now to a long-term mitigation goal which avoids dangerous climate change.
The report also showed that the challenge before us is not primarily a technical or economic challenge, it is now mostly a political and institutional challenge.
Finance is central to building confidence. To be honest, there is some scepticism out there - particularly on the part of developing countries - about where additional funding is going to come from. The answer is the carbon market.
The carbon market can deliver a significant part of investment flows necessary to enable a global transition to a low carbon economy, but it does need strengthening through more countries making binding emission reduction commitments. Only with these - and the carbon trading that will flow from them - will developing countries get the finance they need.
On top of this, we will need new and innovative financing instruments to help developing countries put in place the necessary policies and measures to attract investment for low carbon growth. The Clean Energy Investment Frameworks being developed by the International Finance Institutions can play a major role here.
And we should not forget adaptation - the cost of adaptation is actually far more uncertain and less well studied. Also, well-defined markets are more difficult to envisage, but that should not stop us considering how we could use market-related finance to fund adaptation in developing countries.
Earlier this year Gordon Brown, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, announced the creation of a new £800m international Environmental Transformation Fund, which will help developing countries to access clean energy, adapt to climate change, and support reduced emissions from deforestation. I hope that this will be matched by other contributions.
On aviation, the next big step forward will be to include it in the EU’s Emissions Trading Scheme.
What all this shows is that there is still an enormous amount of work we need to do. But what it also means for all of us is that the time for more talking about the problem is over.
And for that reason the Climate Change Conference in December this year in Bali has to start negotiations. It has to tell the world that all governments will aim to conclude a global and comprehensive post-2012 agreement by 2009 in Copenhagen.
It will have to be ambitious. There is no point in negotiating a deal that will not take us towards stabilisation and so avoid dangerous climate change. I strongly believe that we will have to agree in Bali that we will reduce global emissions to at least 50% below 1990 levels by 2050.
It also has got to come up with a roadmap to ensure a successful outcome in Copenhagen - a process to get us there. That means agreeing the essential elements of an agreement - which I have tried to set out here today. And it means agreeing a list of all the issues that countries are concerned about or want looked at as part of the negotiations, under both the Convention and the Kyoto Protocol negotiations on deeper emission reduction targets for developed countries. In other words, ensuring that all of these issues are on the table for the negotiations by the time we leave Bali.
So there we have it. You could almost believe it was straightforward, couldn’t you ?
But I believe we are at a turning point.
If we don’t respond then we have a bleak future, and the generations that follow us will simply not understand, given that we knew what we knew, why we did not act.
If we do respond, then I am sure we can move the earth away from catastrophic climate change.
It is really that simple.
The choice is ours.
The test is the greatest this generation will face.
So I think we should just get on with it.
Thank you.
Page last modified: 8 October 2007
Page published:
26 September 2007