Source: BBC Radio Five Live
URL: N/A
Date: 14/02/2015
Event: Christine Allen: party leaders' pledge "really important for people and the planet"
Credit: BBC Radio Five Live
People:
Eleanor Oldroyd: David Cameron, Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg are promising to work together to fight climate change, whatever the result of May's General Election. In a joint statement, they describe it as the most serious - one of the most serious threats facing the world today. Liz Hutchins is from Friends of the Earth.
Liz Hutchins: It is really striking to have consensus on an issue so close to the General Election, and I think that the political leaders are hearing the weight of support from the electorate, really, on this - people really do recognise the need to change the direction that we're going, in our climate change.
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Eleanor Oldroyd: So, as you've just been hearing, David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband have all agreed to work together to tackle climate change - they've issued a joint statement saying that climate change is one of the most serious threats facing the world today, and they'll work across party lines to agree cuts to the UK's carbon emissions. Christine Allen is Director of Policy for Christian Aid - they're part of the Green Alliance, which brokered the deal. Good morning to you.
Christine Allen: Good morning.
Eleanor Oldroyd: How sincere do you think this political commitment is? Will they actually deliver on it?
Christine Allen: Well, we hope so, we really do. It's really important for people and the planet, and particularly for people who are poorest on our planet.
Eleanor Oldroyd: When they're talking about working together to challenge climate change, to tackle it, what do they need to do, do you think?
Christine Allen: Well, the science is pretty clear about a variety of different steps that people can make. One particular aspect about this pledge is the commitment to cut down the use of unabated coal in power generation, and this is really the first major agreement that the leaders have made, on this particular aspect, particularly since the Climate Act itself, really.
Eleanor Oldroyd: When you talk about it making a difference to people, who's it actually going to make a difference to? Just kind of give us some of the scenarios that you're trying to tackle, with Christian Aid.
Christine Allen: Well, in Christian Aid we deal with a lot of people around the world - they might be farmers in Africa, they might be people across India and Bangladesh that are facing floods, farmers in a variety of countries that face very erratic kind of weather - they don't know when to plant, if they do plant seeds they lose their crops - people who have experienced landslides... it's this, kind of, like amazingly erratic and strange weather that people are facing, and that just places people who are more - who are poorest as the most vulnerable in the world.
Eleanor Oldroyd: There are still climate change sceptics, and in the political arena particularly, plenty of backbenchers in the Conservative Party, saying "Well, this is all going to lead to higher energy bills for consumers", and that's obviously not a vote-winner, as far as they're concerned.
Christine Allen: Well, it depends whether or not you take a short-term or a long-term view. One of the reasons why this pledge has been welcomed by a variety of people, including businesses, is because this commitment gives some kind of stability about the long-term trajectory that this country's on. We know that we have to wean ourselves off this addiction to fossil fuels - there's only so many years that fossil fuels are in the ground for, anyway. So if we take renewables and we take a variety of long-term sustainable measures for our energy, that's going to result in a better kind of economy all round.
Eleanor Oldroyd: The fact that they're coming together - this is a rare thing for the three main political leaders to say "We're going to work together, on this, and it doesn't matter who wins the election". How big a signal is that? How big a statement are they making, here?
Christine Allen: I mean, it's an amazingly big statement. As you say, it means that whoever wins the next election, the commitment to climate change exists. And the thing about 2015 is it's an important year - we're all heading towards the Party - Conference of the Parties, the UN climate change negotiations in December, and of course the election comes in the middle of that, so that presents a lot of confusion, it presents a lot of instability about those negotiations. This agreement, this pledge actually says "Let's keep our eye on the prize, let's focus on what we can agree at Paris in December, and let's not take climate change to be a political football any more". It's a great step forward, and it's something we really welcome.
Eleanor Oldroyd: Christine, thank you very much indeed for coming in and talking to us - that's Christine Allen, who's Director of Policy for Christian Aid.