20091217_GB

Source: UK Labour Party

URL: http://www.labour.org.uk/for-the-planet-there-is-no-plan-b

Date: 17/12/2009

Event: Gordon Brown: Hurricanes, floods, typhoons, droughts now revealed to be "the visible acts of man"

Attribution: UK Labour Party

People:

• Gordon Brown: UK Prime Minister

Gordon Brown’s speech to the Copenhagen Climate Summit, 17th December 2009

Gordon Brown: I come to this, the largest ever global conference, facing the greatest global challenge of our time, to appeal to you to summon up the highest level of ambition and will. The success of our endeavours depends upon us forging a new alliance not one block against another, not north against south, not rich against poor but the first global alliance of 192 countries – a new alliance for the preservation of our planet.

Scientific truths know no boundaries of ideology or politics, and I believe that no one can honestly deny that, without common action, rising sea levels could wipe whole nations from the map. And without common action, extreme temperatures will create a new generation of poor, with climate change refugees driven from their homes by drought, climate change evacuees fleeing the threat of drowning, the climate change hungry desperate for lack of food.

Hurricanes, floods, typhoons and droughts that were once all regarded as the acts of an invisible god are now revealed to be also the visible acts of man. And I say to this conference: informed by science, inspired by common purpose, moved by conscience, the leaders of this fragile world must affirm that every country and every continent will now build their future not at the expense of other countries’ futures but in support of our common future.

And we will not condemn millions to injustice without remedy, to sorrow without hope, to deprivation without end. The task of politics is to overcome obstacles even when people say they are too formidable. And the task of statesmanship is to make the essential possible, to make ideals real even when critics tell you they are impractical and unachievable.

And my talks this week convince me that, while the challenges we face are difficult and testing, there is no insuperable barrier of finance, no inevitable deficit of political will, no insurmountable wall of division that need prevent us from rising to the much-needed common purpose and, on the following plan, reaching agreement now – a long-term goal of a global temperature increase by 2050 of no more than two degrees.

On the way to an emissions cut of at least 80 per cent by 2050 all developed countries move to their highest possible level of ambition by 2020.

In recognition of their common but differentiated responsibilities, developing countries commit to nationally appropriate mitigation actions at their highest possible level of ambition, achieving a significant reduction from business as usual and standing behind their actions as developed countries must stand behind their emissions cuts.

To make this possible, developed countries commit to immediate finance for developing countries, starting from January 2010, of $10 billion annually in 2010, 2011 and 2012.

And, for long-term finance by 2020, the goal of $100 billion a year – to come from public and private sources, including international and national budgets, with a process to agree how such sums can be raised, including from innovative financing mechanisms, and with fair and effective financial arrangements – to address the gaping sorrows of left-out millions in Africa, to address our island states, to address the fear gripping the planet’s most vulnerable communities and to address the urgent need that we must build, not destroy, the precious forests of our world.

We must commit, therefore, to additionality in our support so that we do not ever force a choice between meeting the needs of the planet and meeting our Millennium Development Goals. For people rightly say to us: if we can provide the finance to save the banks from our bankers, we can, with the right financial support, save the planet from those forces that would destroy it.

A commitment also to turn the agreement into a legally binding instrument within six months to a year – as we build on the Kyoto Protocol – with transparency in accounting for both developed and developing countries, including international discussion and without diminishing national sovereignty.

Friends, I do not ask my country or your country to suspend its national interest but to advance it more intelligently, for nothing matters to any nation’s interest more than the fate of the one world we have.

To the developed world, I say also: environmental action is the most powerful engine of job creation in an economy urgently in need of millions of jobs.

To the developing world, I say: the technology now exists to gain the dividends of a high-growth economy without incurring the damage of a high-carbon economy.

And to all nations, I say: it is not enough to do the least we can get away with when history asks that we demand the most of ourselves. As one of the greatest of world leaders warned at a different time of peril, 'It is no use saying "We are doing our best." You have got to succeed in doing what is necessary.'

So let us demonstrate a strength of resolve equal to the greatness of our cause. Let us prove today and tomorrow the enduring truth that is more telling than any passing setback – that what we can achieve together is far greater than whatever we can achieve unilaterally and alone. In these few days in Copenhagen, which will be blessed or blamed for generations to come, we cannot permit the politics of narrow self-interest to prevent a policy for human survival, because, for all of us and for all our children, there is no greater national interest than the common future of this planet.