Speeches

Now is the moment when our environmental responsibility to future generations must be answered

Speech by Rt Hon Tony Blair to the MASDAR World Future Energy Summit 2009

Breaking The Climate Deadlock

This is a remarkable summit, now established as the premier energy summit of the world.

It comes also at a remarkable time. Yesterday we saw the inauguration of the 44th president of the United States. The scenes were of joy and jubilation. There was a sense of history so intense as to be almost tangible. An American of African origin. A Christian but with Muslim heritage. Something the world doubted it would ever see, seen across the world, bringing new hope, expectation and possibility.

From this conference, let us send our congratulations, good wishes and friendship to the new President of America. President Obama we salute you and wish you well.

But he is in need of more than our good wishes. On his shoulders rests a heavy burden of responsibility. The economic crisis is still with us, evolving and deepening. The events of the past weeks in Gaza illustrate the urgent necessity of finding and pursuing the path to peace in the Middle East. And 2009 should be the year we summon the will and wit to conclude a new Treaty on Climate Change, one which will have America as a signatory.

The challenges are immense. And the new President will have need not just of cheerleaders but of partners, not just of spectators wishing him to do good but of supporters helping to do it.

Our news - when not dominated by the terrible events of Palestine - has been submerged in the economic catastrophe that has hit the financial sector of the World's Economy and now is spread across the real economy. We face recession or worse. It is hard at this moment of immediate crisis to focus on the longer-term challenge our environment faces. But it is necessary. For Presidents and Prime Ministers the problems do not come sequentially or in disciplined order of priority. The agenda sets itself.

My point to you today is very simple. It is now, right now, at the instant when our thoughts are centred on the economic challenge that we must not set to one side the challenge of global warming, but instead resolve to meet it and put the world on a path to sustainable growth for the future. Now is the moment when our responsibility to future generations must be answered. The decisions of 2009 will determine the world of 2029 or 2049. The way to the future must be opened in the present time.

What is more, I would argue that the current economic woes provide us not with an excuse for inaction but a reason for acting. Let us stimulate economic growth by investing in alternative energy and energy efficiency; and let us invest now in these times of lower carbon price to prepare for the times when that price rises again. Let us put economic growth and combating climate change in alliance not opposition.

For who now seriously doubts the scale of the challenge to our environment? The scientific consensus is reasonably clear except to the wilfully blind. The climate is changing. It is changing through the actions of humanity not nature. Without changing our behaviour and cutting dramatically CO2 emissions, the planet will suffer profound and irreversible damage. In turn this requires, and within the coming decades - transformative change in the manner of our economic growth. We have to eliminate our dependence on carbon.

Yet as we speak, emissions are rising. What is more, even if such dramatic action is taken in the developed world that has created this problem, over time the same reduction in emissions will have to happen in the developing world - notably China and India - otherwise the gains in one part will be annulled by the losses in the other. The climate does not distinguish between the different places of origin of the emissions that is why action - even according to differentiated obligations - has to be action done in common, on a global basis, if it is to be effective. And it must involve those who produce the oil and coal as well as those who consume them.

That is why it is so extraordinary and inspiring that this Conference takes place in Abu Dhabi. Those who know the history of this nation know that Sheikh Zayed was a conservationist and environmentalist long before it was fashionable. Today MASDAR continues his legacy and in the pioneering new city now taking shape, is sending out a clarion call of progress. Well done, MASDAR on what you have done; and what you now will do. You are an example to the world.

At this conference, we see also the hope of change to come. Today renewable energy accounts for only a tiny percentage of the world's energy production. Wind and solar make up less than one percent. Though growing, electric cars remain a rarity. Simple household items, such as lighting, continue to be done in an energy wasteful way. Deforestation is 15-20 percent of the problem, several times the impact of air travel.

Yet as the fascinating presentations at this Conference have shown, the means of transformation, the potential technological and scientific advance are there before us. This is not a problem without a solution. The creativity, ingenuity and innovation of humanity is on hand to solve humanity's self-made problem.

But what is needed is to place that brainpower within a framework of global action that incentivises, encourages and propels it forward.

That is my message to you today. Without a global agreement, the task cannot be done. We cannot wait for things to take their course. We must change course to do it, do it together and do it now.

I do not understate the complexity and sensitivity of achieving such a global agreement. American and European business faces the toughest of times. China and India have a complete and justifiable obsession with maintaining strong economic growth so that the hundreds of millions that languish still in poverty, even as part of their economies push into the first world, are lifted from the mire. The question is not: to grow or not to grow; but how we grow.

So what should be in the global accord?

First, it needs not just a 2050 target but an interim target to get there, for example a target for 2020 that shows seriousness of intent and gives business a clear unequivocal signal to invest in a low carbon future.

Secondly, that interim target will inevitably be for the developed world. But it will have to be matched by obligations - albeit differentiated - on behalf of the developing world. This is where the strategic partnerships between China and America, India and America and Europe with all three will be of such paramount significance. The developed world should be prepared to share the technology - indeed much of it can be developed in many different parts of the world including here - and to help fund its introduction. The developing world must be prepared to accelerate the pace of its change in conjunction with such help. The more ambitious the support, the more the peaking time for the emissions in the developing world can be brought forward.

Third, my strong advice to global leaders is: don't make the best the enemy of the good. The deal must of course be sufficiently radical to guide the world in a new direction. It must imply transformation, step-change not small steps. But it must also be realistic. There is no point in demanding of President Obama something he cannot deliver. Instead let us help him deliver what he can.

Fourth, we should be severely practical about the measures we take. The new technology is exciting and do not misunderstand me, absolutely essential. Without it, there will be no transformation. But some of the things we can do, don't belong in the realms of science fact or fiction. Energy efficiency can account for over one quarter of the whole of what we need to do. If America wants to change its pattern of emissions over the next decade, greater energy efficiency - not complex measures, simple ones - can provide huge gains. In fact, over 70 percent of the abatement needed can come from existing or near to market technologies. Protecting and enlarging the world's natural carbon sinks - forests - offers enormous potential. In other words, some of this is not a matter of finding the way, but the will.

Having said that, there are technologies that have to be developed and on a much quicker time scale than currently envisaged. One is solar. Another is the electric car. A third is carbon capture and storage. One stark fact stands out to me. Over 70 percent of the new power stations in China and India over the next decade will be coal fired. That is a mind boggling increase in carbon use. Unless we find a way - and I mean urgently - to advance CCS technology, the challenge, already great, will become even more grave. So as well as the general, the global deal should deal with the particular and the practical.

Fifth, in presenting the case to our people, let us avoid the trap of saying: consume less. Instead, let us ask people to consume differently. During my decade in office, the UK saw greenhouse gas emissions fall, but its economy grow. There are now more jobs in the new environmental industries than in coal, steel and shipping combined. The business opportunities of green growth are vast. And there is another reason of self-interest for us to act. Half of the measures necessary - including though I know this is controversial, the renaissance of nuclear power - increase our energy security as well as our protection of the environment. Nations who worry about diversity and stability of supply will do well to use the green revolution to acquire greater energy independence. The point I am making is that we do not need to and should not express this issue in a way that only makes people fearful. Yes, the change will be a challenge but it also offers commensurate opportunities that we can seize with optimism.

Sixth, we will be compelled to develop a global system of financing both some of the change and, most particularly, the costs of adaptation. This will be an intricate, not to say delicate, part of the negotiation. We must reform the Clean Development Mechanism of Kyoto or invent another way to generate the funds. I advise against treating it as an aid issue. In the present fiscal situation, that will lead nowhere. The means must be self-generating - for example through trading in the different carbon markets - and therefore self-sustaining. But we cannot forget this dimension. Those countries which we are asking to grow differently, perhaps to substitute one means of energy production for another, will not do it if the price is too high.

Seventh and last, is the process itself. The UN negotiators are engaged in a heroic, not to say Herculean task. Knitting the disparate elements together in a global deal is technically complex and politically sensitive to an unusual degree. The UN needs a steer, and lead, from the key countries. There is no point in being naive about this. Unless the major emitters - however that is measured - agree, there will be no agreement. That makes the G8 and G20 meetings of enormous purport. It means nations like this one, should have their place. It requires a unique combination of vision and co-operation.

And this brings me to my conclusion. We need a vision of what should be. We need a coming together to achieve it. We must throw off the slough of cynicism, world-weariness, a defeatism in the face of challenge that in the end defeats only ourselves. Today the US emits around 20 tons of CO2 per year per person; Europe and Japan around 10. By 2050, that must reduce to 2 per person per year. China and India must catch up in prosperity and yet peak and come down in pollution. To contemplate such a revolution in behaviour requires courage, commitment but also and above all, a common purpose. A purpose shared across the world, to act in the interests of the world.

The primary objective of any global deal will be to save our environment for the age to come. But it would, in doing so, result in something else: a resurgence of belief that multilateral agreement is possible; that nations working in concert can produce results; that the cliché, a global community, is a cliché because it is true.

This truth is now manifest. The economic crisis may have originated in America; but America alone cannot solve it. The suffering in the conflict between Israel and Palestine is felt most by the people of that land, but its consequences touch the lives of people in the streets not just of the Middle East, but of the towns and cities of Europe and across the world.

The environment knows no boundaries or frontiers made by man. The impact of its degradation will be felt, tragically, most by those most ill-equipped to withstand it. But its impact ultimately will be universal.

This is our twenty first century world. This is the world our children will inherit. Interdependent. Connected. Destined to succeed or fail together. It demands of us a special sentiment, an unusual willingness to take responsibility. And not to wait on others; but to take a lead.

Here - in one of the carbon centres of the world - this country, is leading. Against everything you might expect, against intuition, the Emirates have decided to become a centre of alternative energy; to give a lead where there is no reason of immediate or narrow self-interest to do so; but where they recognise that by showing others the way to the future, they make their own future better.

It is that spirit - at a time when the reins of leadership are taken into new hands - which should animate us. And if it does then despite the recent calamities and pressing challenges in the times to come, we can look upon the future not with fear but with hope, hope born of confidence that history never poses problems that humankind cannot resolve.

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