Climate Change

In the global battle to combat climate change, no Government have done more than this Labour Government, both domestically and internationally, to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases or raise the level of international consensus that is required if we are to hold anthropogenic climate change below 2°C. I say that not as a complacent boast, but as a warning to the world. If we who are acknowledged to lead internationally have still so much more to do to change our domestic consumption of energy—and we have—those nations which have so far failed to address climate change may find that the distance they have to travel cannot be covered in the time that the planet is prepared to allow them. Such a mistake is more than bad timing, it is injustice—injustice between the generations and a shameful disregard for the security and future well-being of our children. It is injustice too in that it is we in the developed world who have contributed most to the current 430 ppm concentration of CO2 equivalent in the atmosphere, but it is those living in the developing world who stand to lose most should those concentrations rise to push temperatures up by more than 2°. The poorest people in the world will suffer most, as Africa loses 4 per cent. of its GDP for every 1° rise in temperature; as India loses 17 per cent. of its wheat yield in tropical areas for the 2° rise in temperature predicted above 450 ppm; and as the populations of China, India and south-east Asia experience drought because the seven great river systems originating in the glacial plateau of the Himalayas run dry. Within the next half century, 40 per cent. of the world’s population could face the loss of half of all their drinking water. It is because of the injustice of that greater threat to the livelihood of the poor that we have developed the notion of common but differentiated responsibilities for all countries. Developed nations, who bear greater responsibility for the problem, must bear a greater share of the costs of tackling it. Let us all hope that that is a principle to which the planet’s richest country will soon subscribe. It used to be thought that there was an environment agenda and a development agenda, both good but separate. Climate change has taught us above all that that is a lie. The environment and the development agenda are one, indivisible. Climate change has taught us that the proper name for development without sustainability is extinction.