Comment

New Ground 68
Spring 2005

Meeting the Climate Challenge

Preventing dangerous climate change cannot be achieved unless the number of countries committed to decarbonising their economies is expanded to include today's largest emitter, the United States, and tomorrow's largest emitters in the developing world. Nor can it be achieved unless existing commitments to reduce emissions are met and deepened further. Altogether, that is an enormous challenge.

Tony Blair's commitment to put climate change at the top of the agenda for the UK's Presidencies of the G8 and EU this year creates a significant opportunity for making progress. The fact that heads of state will be discussing climate change as a priority agenda item at all is in itself a step forward after years in which it has languished as a second or third order issue. However, progress will be measured by whether new levels of understanding and cooperation can be reached to address the problem.

Engaging the laggards

To engage the US and the more reluctant of the major developing countries requires a multi-stranded strategy. The first strand is to change the terms of the debate. The UK Government should use its G8 and EU Presidencies to adopt a new political narrative on climate change that casts it not primarily as an environmental issue, but about securing and enhancing economic prosperity and human welfare.

The US' propensity for technological solutions should be harnessed in the G8 through the creation of a new Climate Group that includes other major developed and developing economies. Instead of being devoted to technological research and development, the group should negotiate partnerships to achieve the large-scale, near-term deployment of existing low- and no-carbon energy technologies, particularly in the transport sector where emissions are rising in nearly every country. These could include partnerships to promote highly efficient cars, using enhanced fuel efficiency standards, tax incentives, grants or government procurement, and the promotion of biofuels, through the reorientation of agricultural subsidies from food production.

Any serious effort to re-engage the US on climate change must also call for and help the US adopt a cap and trade scheme for US emissions. Even if the Bush administration persists in rejecting such an approach, it will remain essential that the British Government helps non-Administration actors in the US in their efforts to achieve it, including members of Congress, State-level officials and business leaders.

Moreover, progress is more likely to be made if all of these efforts are supported by a greater willingness on the part of the UK and its EU partners to link action on climate change with action sought by the US and others on issues such as trade or investment.

Building a leadership coalition

In addition to engaging the US, the UK has an equally important role to play in leading and building a coalition of countries willing to make faster progress in adopting effective climate policy.

The UK should work to persuade a coalition of countries to commit to a pathway for technological modernisation. Reforms it should take include: phasing out of fossil fuel subsidies; requiring Export Credit Agencies and Multilateral Development Banks to adopt minimum efficiency standards for their projects and improve the terms they offer for low and no-carbon energy schemes; requiring companies to disclose climate change related risks; and requiring institutional investors take account of long-term risks in their investments as part of their fiduciary duty.

The UK Government should staunchly advocate the EU's objective of preventing average global temperatures from rising over 2°C above the pre-industrial level, and make the case for stabilising greenhouse gases at concentrations associated with having a high probability of keeping below a rise of 2°C (which would mean stabilising at levels closer to 400ppm than 550ppm CO2-equivalent).

Another key task is to build support for an equitable and inclusive framework for post-2012 climate commitments under the forthcoming UN climate negotiations. Under such a framework, developed countries would need to take on increased emission reduction commitments and agree to help developing countries reduce their emissions and adapt to climate impacts. Developing countries' activities would evolve through a multi-stage process according to changing national circumstances, starting with policies that decouple economic growth from emissions growth, moving to carbon intensity targets and finally binding emission targets.

Leading by example

Leadership on the global stage will need to be matched by delivery at home if the Government is to lead by example and secure the support of civil society for its G8 and EU ambitions. To do that, the Labour Party manifesto should re-affirm the pledge to cut UK CO2 emissions by 20 per cent below 1990 levels by 2010 and promise (a package of) new measures to meet it, including a tougher cap on UK industry for the second phase of the European Emissions Trading Scheme. With UK emissions currently predicted to be reduced by just 14 percent by 2010, and the possibility that reductions may need to be as much as 40 per cent by 2020 the task ahead is daunting. By prioritising climate change, Tony Blair has chosen to take on one of the world's greatest and most difficult challenges. The world will be watching to see if he and his fellow leaders can seize it.

Simon Retallack is a Research Fellow at the Institute for Public Policy Research and a member of the Secretariat of the International Climate Change Taskforce.