Environment

A global responsibility

We must in the year ahead make our global commitment to tackle the problem of climate change a reality.

The start of 2009 is a crossroads moment on climate change: does the world look at the financial events unfolding, the complexity of the issue, the challenge of financing and say it’s too hard to act and act quickly? Or do we resolve from here to affirm our aim of a broad and inclusive agreement and keep on the road to a global deal in Copenhagen in December 2009?

To stay on the path to a deal, 2009 must be a year of negotiation not discussion and we all need to raise our game. Morally, we know the scale of the threat of a changing climate. Economically, we know the costs of not acting outweigh the costs of acting and the costs grow the longer we wait.

And so to up the pace, we need to do three things.

First, each country must show clear intent, guided by the science. Many developing countries are setting out national plans to show how they want to tackle climate change. In Nepal this is starting with the development of the National Adaptation Plan of Action and plans for a regional climate change event to be hosted here in Nepal. We in the UK have adopted a target to cut emissions by 80 per cent by 2050, we will adopt challenging targets for 2020 and we have enshrined national carbon budgets in law. All of this is driven by our under standing of what the science tells us about the impact of dangerous climate change.

Secondly, we need to be ambitious about what we can achieve. Of course circumstances are hard, we are not in times of economic difficulty and the pressure of this can be felt across the globe. But we now have a framework to guide our effort: the aim of at least 50% cut in emissions by 2050 compared to 1990. Developed countries will have to so more – which is why the UK has set an 80 per cent in law, and why we should all welcome the fat that President Obama has done the same. But if we have targets for 2050, we also need interim targets for the emerging economies and that is something we will have to resolve together in the coming year. Nepal is well placed to help South Asia make the shift to low carbon energy and expand access to power for the poor with its rich hydropower resources as well as solar and wind potential.

And this takes me to my third point: we need to remember that we are all in this together. Climate change is an issue which transcends all others in they way it show we are interdependent: in how it affects us and whether we can tackle it.

And if we are all in this together, we know the basis of an agreement if likely to be: major reductions from developed countries, substantial deviation from business as usual by developing countries and significantly increased and reliable flow of finance for adaptation and mitigation, for developing countries. None of this will be easy.

At the UN climate conference in Poznan, a number of developing and developed countries came together around principles we should apply to deforestation an agreed statement. This is important for Nepal where 40% of land is classified as forest and where the model of community forestry can offer lessons to the rest of the world on how to increase sustainable forest management and reduce poverty. In support of the huge efforts made at the conference to get the adaptation fund up and running, the UK also committed more money on urgent adaptation needs through the UN funds and contributed another 100m to forestry, reflecting the importance of capacity building and the obligations we acknowledge to forested nations. We know this is only a contribution to what is required, but it is a sign of intent. It reflects the spirit of being in it together.

In Poznan, we reaffirmed our determination to up the pace on the road to Copenhagen. And we should recognize the since it must be done, it can be done and therefore it can be done by us together. We have come a long way forward in the recognition of the problem of climate change and the need to tackle it. We must in the year ahead make our global commitment to act a reality. We are ready to work with Nepal to achieve this.