Speeches

Tony Blair on Breaking the Climate Deadlock

Thursday, Jun 26, 2008 in Office of Tony Blair, Breaking the Climate Deadlock

There has been an enormous shift in opinion on climate change in recent years in favour of radical action. There is a coincidence between concern over the climate and anxiety over oil prices. Both point to a reduction in carbon dependence. Energy security has likewise leapt up the agenda.

For many reasons, now is the time to act. The challenge is to set a framework that allows change to happen at a pace that is (a) sufficient and (b) sensible. The good news is that there is a large degree of consensus as to the nature of the challenge and the need to deal with it.

Most people no longer need persuading that the changing climate poses a serious risk to humankind. Everyone, with oil at over $100 a barrel and with resources scarce, agrees that energy security is a crucial issue. There is now agreement that we should shift our economies away from carbon dependence. Again, most people agree that a framework for national and international action is needed to incentivise, encourage and oblige such a radical shift.

The question is: how? What is the framework that is sufficiently radical about where we have to go; and sufficiently realistic about where we are and the speed of travel? If we are not radical enough in altering the nature of our economic growth, we will not avoid potential catastrophe to the climate. If we are not realistic enough in setting a framework to get there, we will fail to achieve agreement.

Our citizens are alarmed at growing damage to the climate. Our citizens can also be alarmed at the radical scale of action necessary to prevent it. The task of political leadership is therefore to achieve the right national and international action that puts the global economy on a path to low-carbon growth, but does so in a way that does not hinder the completely legitimate aspirations of people - especially those in the poorer parts of the world - to enjoy the material and social benefits of growth and consumption. Given the complexity of the issues involved, the imprecision of much of the data, and the extraordinarily tricky interplay between the political, the technical and the organisational, answering the question of "how?" is as difficult as any the international community has grappled with since the design of the post-war Bretton Woods economic institutions.

The UNFCCC is charged with making the Global Deal and there is no route to such a Global Deal except under its authority. The purpose of this report is to lay out the issues, bring together the information currently available, and suggest a process for resolution. This is meant as an aid to the proper, formal UN process.

But we should be open about the substantial present political risk.

There is a danger of a yawning chasm between, on the one side, those in the scientific, NGO, and expert community who want very radical action immediately to cut greenhouse gas emissions; and on the other side, those in positions of political leadership who fear they are being asked for something beyond their power to deliver without damage to economic growth.

Just test it in this way. The core demand many make is for a 2020 interim target to be agreed in the UN negotiating process at Copenhagen at the end of 2009. The target demanded for developed countries is of the order of a 25-40 percent cut in emissions. It is a very bold commitment indeed. But, on closer analysis, it is even bolder than it appears. The target is set on a 1990 baseline - i.e., our progress in the next 11 years is to be measured against what happened almost 20 years ago. But many developed nations have seen emissions rise since 1990, not fall. In the US they have risen by over 16 percent; in Japan by over 7 percent. Some European countries - notably Germany and the UK - have seen falls. But just in the last 3 years, in Europe as a whole they have been roughly static. So a baseline of 1990 makes the target even tougher than it sounds.

Essentially, we are asking North America, Europe and Japan to move from a situation of rising or static emissions in the last 12 years, to a significant, unprecedented cut in the next 12 to allow global emissions to peak by 2020.

Scientists will say: it is essential.

Political leaders will ask: is it possible?

We are not assisted by the fact that many of the figures used are open to intense debate as our knowledge increases. For example, we talk of a 25-40 percent cut by 2020. But, to state the obvious, 25 is a lot different from 40 percent. Some will say that to have a reasonable chance of constraining warming to approximately 2°C, we need greenhouse gas concentration to peak at 500 parts per million by volume (ppmv); some 450 ppmv; some even less. Some insist that 2020 is the latest peaking moment we can permit, beyond which damage to the climate will become irreversible; some, though generally not in the scientific community, say 2025 or even 2030 may be permissible.

Then there are important facts and deep political realities that we can easily miss.

· Energy efficiency would provide around one quarter of the gains necessary and, incidentally, save money, but its significance is often ignored.

· The vast majority of new power stations in China and India will be coal-fired; not "may be coal-fired"; will be. So developing carbon capture and storage technology is not optional, it is literally of the essence.

· Without at least some countries engaging in a substantial renaissance of nuclear power, it is hard to see how any global deal could work.

· Around 70-80 percent of the current stock of CO2 emissions in the atmosphere was created by the developed world.

· But if the US meets the boldest targets for reductions while China continues on its present path, and India follows, the climate will still suffer irreversible damage.

· For developing countries to grow sustainably they will need funds and technology, otherwise they will not be able to peak and then reduce emissions within the necessary timescale.

· Deforestation amounts to around 15-20 percent of the entire emissions problem.

· Certain key sectors like cement, steel and of course power most of all, account for a huge percentage - almost half of all emissions.

· Airline and shipping emissions, though only 5 percent today, are a fast growing part of the problem.

· Done right, the costs of abatement will be manageable and probably less than predicted; and there are potentially real opportunities for the new low-carbon economy that will develop.

There is another crucial political reality. The science is developing all the time. The one certain thing is that what is said today, in 2008, will not be quite the same as what is said by the time of Copenhagen, let alone in 2012 or 2015. Our knowledge is growing the whole time. Another pretty safe prediction: technology will develop in ways we cannot predict. But, for sure, if a clear set of incentives are given, the market willrespond, human creativity and ingenuity will get to work, answers will be given tomorrow that cannot be contemplated today.

There is also an immense political danger which anyone who has participated in intricate and politically sensitive multilateral negotiations understands. If the Copenhagen meeting happens without a clear political direction already having been given, then it will be a negotiator's nightmare. What is more, the danger is that countries then approach Copenhagen with minimalist positions, knowing concessions will be dragged out of them; rather than setting out genuinely the maximum that they think they can realistically achieve. The consequence will be an agreement of lowest common denominator, with a hotchpotch of complicated mechanisms that leaves the world little further forward and public opinion disillusioned and dissatisfied.

There is a different and better way of approaching a global deal. What is essential is that the world, especially the world of business, gets from Copenhagen a clear, unequivocal, radical direction. The exact speed of travel may vary and will be adjusted in time. But everyone needs to know that the direction is plain and unambiguous. Such a deal can be based around the following points:

A The trend of opinion - scientific and political - is clear, for reasons of energy security as well as climate change: we have to change the way we grow, to reduce radically our dependence on carbon. That is why a 2050 target of at least a 50 percent reduction in emissions should now be able to be agreed.

B The crucial thing at Copenhagen is to set a clear direction in order to achieve such a reduction, both for the developed and developing world. I.e., get the process of change under way; establish the pathway with interim targets for developed countries; but realise that between now and 2050 a lot will change about what we do and what we know.

C The Hokkaido Toyako G8+5 and the Major Economies Meeting (MEM) should set out the agreement to the critical 2050 target and identify the core elements that go into the global deal.

D There should then be a requisitioning of the necessary research and analysis so that the core elements have a real and substantial factual underpinning to support agreement on them.

E The G8+5 and other major economies (for example, as with the MEM) in Italy in 2009 should then get agreement on the core elements and how they fit together, and this should feed in to the Copenhagen process of the UN, which then can make the Global Deal.

F The Copenhagen agreement should be the maximum that is politically realistic and achievable at this time, i.e., 2009.

G A process should then be agreed to provide for periodic reviews of what has been done and what is necessary to do, so that the agreement can be adjusted. This should happen in a smaller forum of the key economies and feed into the UN process. So the idea would be for a rolling treaty, not a one-off resolution of an issue that cannot be concluded in 2009, or even shortly after.

H Copenhagen can then do its work, knowing there is a political direction from the countries that account for 75 percent of emissions; knowing that it is not expected to solve, once and for all, all issues; knowing that there will be then a continuing political process that will allow for further radical steps as our actions and our knowledge become clearer.

Such a way of doing things rests on one fundamental assumption: that the problem today is not one of political will; that the political dilemma is not "whether" but "how". There are good grounds for making this assumption. The attitude of countries like China and India is no longer: you, the wealthy created this challenge; you can solve it. They know climate change is "our" problem not "yours". How we address it is a matter of equity. But the change in climate is the same whether the emissions originate in New York or Shanghai. And of course, the most vulnerable to the impact of climate change live in the poorest areas of the world.

Likewise, in the US today, there is a broad swathe of consensus that the primary responsibility for making near-term reductions in emissions rests with the developed world. Opinion in Japan, under PM Fukuda's leadership, has shifted. In Europe, there is a genuine and deep consensus about the need to act.

The challenge is not one of will. It is how to get a deal that sets us clearly on a path to a low carbon future; that is fair; and that is do-able. That is radical and realistic. In this report, we describe the elements that could go into such a deal and the thinking behind them.

Tony Blair