Source: BBC Radio 4: Today Programme
URL: N/A
Date: 02/09/2009
Event: James Naughtie interviewing Ed Miliband, a few months before COP15 in Copenhagen.
People:
James Naughtie: Another Miliband in a moment, because India and Bangladesh are two countries in the frontline of the argument about climate change. India of course is a coming economic powerhouse but like China is under huge international pressure to manage its growth in a sustainable way. And just to its east, Bangladesh is one of the countries most vulnerable to the effects of climate change, the effects of flood and drought on tens of millions of people are forecast to intensify dramatically in the next few decades. Well, two Cabinet ministers are on visits to both countries this week - one is Douglas Alexander, the International Development Secretary - but we're joined now from the British High Commission in Delhi, as I indicated, by the Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband. Good morning.
Ed Miliband: Good morning Jim, how are you?
James Naughtie: Very well. A straightforward question first of all. What have you seen?
Ed Miliband: I think what I've seen is the fact that while some people would see climate change as a theoretical prospect for the future, going to Bangladesh one is struck by how present it is now. So there are two million people - just to give you an example - living on sandbanks in Bangladesh, just above sea level, they are already - and I've met some of them on my trip - they are already seeing their homes washed away by rising flood waters, some of which are going to be caused by the climate change that is already happening. That for me emphasises the urgency of the world coming to an agreement in the Copenhagen summit, which happens in December of this year, to help those people, to prevent... to reduce our carbon emissions and to help them with adapting to climate change, because a difference can be made in terms of adapting to climate change, but these people are in perilous situations and they're in perilous situations now.
James Naughtie: I'll come to Copenhagen in a second, but as far as these particular people are concerned, the people who are living, you know, just at the water's edge who are, as you say, in a perilous situation, isn't it too late to expect that things which are already in train can be stopped?
Ed Miliband: I don't think it's too late, in the following sense. First of all, what was impressive is the way in which UK Government money, money from other countries, is going to help these people, just by lifting up the point at which they live, physically lifting their houses can make a difference. So adapting to climate change is part of the solution. But the other thing that we've got to do is stop the situation getting dramatically worse. And everything we know, for example, about Bangladesh is that 70 million people out of a country of 140 million people will be at grave risk from climate change if the world doesn't act. So there's a twin track we've got to pursue here: one, to adapt to what's already going to happen, and secondly, to stop the problem getting significantly worse.
James Naughtie: Well, it is 100 days, more or less, to Copenhagen, many eyes will be on India and China, and Brazil, and other places - but let's say India and China at the moment - to sign up to something which does offer the hope of co-ordinated international action to try to prevent some of the worst excesses of the things we're being warned about by reputable scientists. Now will you get a deal that means anything?
Ed Miliband: I hope so, but it's an uphill struggle, and I'll make no bones about that...
James Naughtie: It is an uphill struggle.
Ed Miliband: It is absolutely an uphill struggle. And here's the most difficult thing about this, Jim, which is that if you look backwards at who's caused climate change it's basically us in the developed world, we're responsible for the vast majority of the climate change that has already happened. But if you look forward - and this is why everyone needs to be part of an agreement in some form - about three-quarters of the growth in carbon emissions in the next 20 years will come in developing countries, in particular China and India. I'm not singling them out but that's the reality. So...
James Naughtie: It's the fact.
Ed Miliband: It's a fact. So what we have to overcome here is the need of... the question of finger pointing, and really say, look, developed countries like Britain is already saying it's going to cut its emissions by a third by 2020, we need to be ambitious about what we can do, but we also need to find ways in which a country like India can both develop - because there are 400 million people living on less than a dollar a day in this country - and not follow the high carbon path that we followed, and follow a low carbon path - solar energy, renewable energy, energy efficiency, all those things that will help them contribute to a solution.
James Naughtie: Ed Miliband, Climate Change Secretary, in Delhi, thanks very much.