Speech by Rt Hon Hilary Benn MP at the US Capitol, Washington DC, USA: Building Low Carbon Prosperity: Changing the Political Climate - 13 May 2008
I am delighted to be here today, and I’d like to thank the Pew Centre on Global Climate Change for arranging this event and to express my admiration for the work that you do. And of course my sincere thanks to Senator Menendez for taking the time to be here today.
It is also a personal pleasure for someone half of whose roots lie on this side of the Atlantic – my mother was from Cincinnati – to be here in Congress talking as a parliamentarian to my fellow legislators. It is by our politics that we have the means to solve the problem we are here today to debate – if we can find the will to do so.
And just as America approaches a moment of decision which will determine the future of this great nation, so we all face a choice.
The route we take – the choice we make - will determine the future of our planet.
To act on climate change or look away.
To change or to hesitate.
To prosper or to fail.
I believe that in the long run we will only prosper by acting to prevent dangerous change to our climate and so to our world.
Climate change is the ultimate expression of our interdependence. It respects neither geography, state lines nor tariff barriers and it arises from unprecedented affluence and wealth that has brought opportunity to many.
But this process of economic development and globalisation has also brought credit shocks, the movement of jobs and industries to new lands, and great pressures on the earth’s finite resources.
We share this small and fragile planet with 6.2 billion souls. We will be 9 billion in less than 50 years. One thing is clear - rich or poor - we are all vulnerable to nature’s force and we cannot deal with it alone. The crisis in Burma’s Irrawaddy Delta is tragic proof of that.
Often, when we are faced with powerful forces we feel we do not control, we can be tempted to dig in and defend what we have.
But isolation is not the answer. Protection is not the solution. Closing our eyes and hoping that it will all go away will not work.
We know that climate change is the single greatest challenge that our world faces, and we cannot claim any more that we had not noticed that - unchecked – it could threaten not just our environment, but our economy and our security.
What will we do when people start to fight, not about their politics but over water? What will we do when people turn up on our shores fleeing not political persecution but environmental catastrophe?
The answer is to use our politics – now - to prevent this happening. Climate change is a political issue, and our responsibility as politicians is to act. So, what’s stopping us?
Let’s tell the truth. There is a very real concern - in all countries - that acting on climate change will undermine economic development and competitiveness and that there is an economic cost in doing so.
And what’s happening currently in the world economy has brought this concern into the open.
All over the world, people are feeling the impact of the credit crunch. Prices are rising in Los Angeles, Lagos and in my constituency in Leeds. We are paying more for a loaf of bread and for petrol at the pumps.
Some will say that these pressures mean we must put our economic interests first; that we must choose economic stability over environmental stability.
I believe that this is a false choice. We need both.
We must resist the temptation to put off dealing with climate change for another day when the world economy is stronger. We would be betraying future generations if we did so; and it will cost us more if we delay.
Why ? Because in the years ahead the only successful economies will be low carbon economies.
Britain is going to pull through the current global difficulties because we have a strong economy. And in doing so we will be laying the foundations of a low carbon future and securing growth for generations to come.
In the modern world, this is the only sure route to sustained prosperity.
For, ultimately, there are two compelling reasons why acting on climate change is essential to maintain our competitiveness.
The first is the potential cost of doing nothing.
As Nick Stern set out in his masterly review of the Economics of Climate Change, ‘the benefits of strong, early action on climate change outweigh the costs’.
Cutting emissions by 2050 to a level the planet can live with, and containing the costs of adjustment, would be equivalent to about 1% of GDP. Set this against the cost of inaction; the damage to the economy and to society of doing nothing would be of a magnitude comparable to that of both World Wars and the Great Depression.
And we don’t have to wait to see if the projections come true. Just look at what’s happening now.
The UN estimates that all but one of its emergency appeals in 2007 were climate related.
The World Health Organisation tells us that 150,000 people are already dying each year from climate change.
I have seen with my own eyes the impact that climate change is already having: in Bangladesh, in Darfur where the terrible conflict has been made worse by shifts in rainfall which have brought conflict over grazing land between nomadic and settled herders, and in Somalia where I visited a town called Wajid.
Eleven thousand people had moved there because it had stopped raining where they had been living. Their homes were the most pitiful shelters I think I have ever seen in my life - made of turned over twigs covered in scraps of clothing and plastic taken from the town rubbish tip. Climate change had put their lives on hold. They were waiting. Waiting for rain.
And we’re not immune from the effects of climate change, either.
I’ve just been in the Midwest where many depend on the resources provided by agriculture and the bounty of the Great Lakes – the largest body of fresh water in the world. How would rising temperatures affect Michigan and Wisconsin?
And in Europe, during the great heatwave of 2003 30,000 elderly people died prematurely.
Wherever we look, the costs of inaction are clear.
But there is a second reason why I believe acting on climate change will be essential in maintaining our competitiveness – and that is the opportunity it presents.
It is the greatest technological challenge of our age.
It is a huge new market full of opportunities.
It is a chance for the countries and technologies that move first to reap the advantage of doing so.
Every nation wants to grow and develop. And increasingly people across the world are realising that they need to do this in a low carbon way – otherwise we risk undermining growth in the long-term.
And developing countries are equally clear that tackling climate change should not stop their development.
Take the example of India.
45% of India’s citizens don’t have electricity, and the Indian Energy Minister told me last November that his job is to get it to them. Their schools need lighting so the children can study. Their industry needs power so it can provide jobs. And their clinics need fridges so they can keep the vaccines cold.
So we need to enable India, and other developing countries, to provide these schools, and jobs and medicines, in a low carbon way.
The question for all of us is how ?
Well, in the UK we are beginning to do this. We have broken the link between growth and emissions. Between 1997 – when we came into office – and 2006 our economy grew by 47% - a quarter in real terms - while greenhouse gas emissions fell by almost 8%. And we will reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by at least 23% by 2010 compared with 1990.
And because I am here today, not just as a British politician, but as a European one too I can tell you that in Europe we are meeting our targets on cutting emissions and enhancing our competitiveness as we do so.
Our environmental industries in the UK are part of this revolution. They are already worth around $50 billion, and are set to nearly double in size by 2015.
The world market for environmental goods and services is growing too. Industries such as renewable energy, waste management and water treatment could be worth $700 billion globally by 2010 - that’s as big as giants such as aerospace – and by 2050, the annual value of the low carbon energy sector could be as high as $3 trillion, as every industry becomes – in one sense or another – an environmental industry.
The new economy will be a low carbon economy, and the prize for all of us is to lead this transformation.
The role for government is to set the long-term framework that business needs because that’s how we will foster the ambition and innovation required.
And as we know, to give businesses the incentives they need to cut emissions, you need to put a price on carbon.
That’s why we are part of - and strongly support - the EU Emissions Trading System. This caps emissions from the biggest polluters across Europe, covering almost half of the UK’s emissions, and then lets them trade amongst themselves, so creating a carbon price.
And a recent study by the Carbon Trust has shown that the effect of this system will not damage UK or European manufacturing competitiveness.
Those sectors that genuinely face competition from carbon pricing are estimated to cover at most 1% of the UK economy.
We are also setting up another trading system in the UK, to reduce emissions from large organisations and from the public sector; from banks and department stores, as well as Local Authorities and all Government Departments.
And to bring all of this work together, we introduced the Climate Change Bill in parliament last year.
It is a truly radical Bill.
Let me set out why.
Firstly, it represents a commitment by the UK Government to a legally-binding, long-term framework for cutting emissions. We are the first country to do this.
Secondly, to manage our emissions, the Bill will introduce carbon budgets for the UK. This too is groundbreaking.
As a nation, just as we need to live within our financial means, so we will now be bound to live within our carbon means. If emissions are going up in one part of the economy, they will have to come down somewhere else as we reduce the total overall.
This will put carbon at the heart of every decision the government makes. Every new policy will have to be judged against its carbon cost.
And this isn’t just a radical shift in the way in which we deal with carbon emissions. It is also a radical shift in the way in which we do politics.
The Bill creates a new, independent, Committee on Climate Change, made up of scientific and economic experts, which will recommend the carbon budgets for the nation to enable us to make the emissions cuts needed in each five year period. It will also monitor and report on our achievement against these budgets.
This is what we are doing – in the face of climate change – and Europe is leading too with its commitment to cut emissions by 20% by 2020 and by 30% in the context of a new global deal.
China has its Climate Change Action Plan and its targets on energy efficiency and renewables.
It is a process of change occurring in a growing number of countries as we all are learning by doing.
There are, of course, differences between the UK and the US. We are 2% of global emissions and the USA is 24%.
But our two nations do enjoy a common bond despite – as Winston Churchill observed – being divided by a common language. And we certainly share a sense of ambition as well as a history.
We were the birthplace of the industrial revolution, and you built the new frontier. You helped us to defeat fascism in Europe. And you conquered space.
We invented the steam engine and the television, and you invented the light bulb and the microprocessor.
You have led the world in technological advance, in increased living standards and in labour productivity. How? Because you found more efficient ways to operate.
Cheaper, cleaner, better technologies.
These achievements were the fruits of a revolution powered by the most creative minds of their generation, and they transformed millions of lives.
We’ve done it once. And there is no reason why we should not do so again in leading the low carbon revolution.
In the UK we have committed to fund the first post-combustion carbon capture and storage coal plant in the EU, but we need many more such plants to show how we can decarbonise electricity generation from coal. We will need to show it working to have a hope of encouraging China and India to use this technology, and then we will need to help fund its use in those countries.
This is one example of the opportunity we have to create these new markets and to bring the world along with us.
Above all, we need a new global deal which asks each nation to contribute a fair share of what is needed while giving each nation the chance to gain the benefits.
Not just the UK and the US – but also China, India, Brazil, Russia, and every nation on this earth.
Getting that agreement in Copenhagen won’t be easy. It will require a goal – what are we trying to achieve - a carbon market, binding commitments from developed countries to reduce emissions, flows of finance to help developing countries pay for low carbon development and to adapt to climate change, and action to prevent deforestation.
We will also need comparability of effort, with developing countries contributing according to their stage of development.
And how are we going to get there? By showing leadership and by showing what is possible.
Is this not the American way?
As America approaches a new political era, nothing demonstrates this change more than how the debate about global warming has changed here.
Yesterday in Michigan and Wisconsin, I was impressed to see the huge strides being made in the Midwest. They have transformed their approach in the last 6 months with their Greenhouse Gas Reduction Accord.
The North East states are planning their cap and trade systems for power generation.
California – the 8th largest economy in the world – has set a target of 80% reductions by 2050.
They are working with many other Western States to develop a cap and trade approach.
The Administration – with the support of Congress – is leading on funding technology research and development, including Carbon Capture and Storage, and is bringing together the major economies of the world to address the challenges and opportunities of climate change.
And just next month the Lieberman-Warner Bill will come before the Senate, with the Energy Information Administration’s analysis showing that US economic growth under the Bill will be virtually identical to growth in the absence of the Bill.
And the reason I am here in Congress today is because the decisions you make will be critical to US domestic action on climate change, and to international agreement.
We stand at a crossroads, and the eyes of the world are on the United States. The world is looking to the US to lead on climate change. Help us take that great step forward.
In 2009, the next President of this country will have the historic opportunity – by signing up to a global deal on climate change – to help secure the future of millions of people on our planet.
And here in Congress – along with parliaments and governments across the world - you have the opportunity to ratify that agreement.
Nothing less than that will do.
We know it must be done, and it is up to each of us to find the will.
It will be our politics that will make this possible.
And it is up to every single one of us to make it happen.
Thank you.
Page published: 16 May 2008