20130923_TB
Source: Hub Culture
URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cF71hc3VHAc
Date: 23/09/2013
Event: Blair: "how do we instil the necessary sense of urgency, and how do we mobilise for action?"
Attribution: Hub Culture, the Climate Group
People:
- Tony Blair: Former Prime Minister of the UK
- Mark Kenber: CEO, the Climate Group
Mark Kenber: It now gives me great pleasure to introduce our first speaker. Prime Minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland from May 1997 to June 2007, he was the first major head of government to bring climate change to the top of the international political agenda, at the G8 Summit in 2005. He's also, I'm very pleased to say, the chair of our International Leadership Council. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the Right Honourable Tony Blair.
Tony Blair: Thank you very much, Mark. One of the first things I learned as Prime Minister is that, unfortunately, the challenges don't come sequentially, in government. So right now I understand why people may be deeply preoccupied with the global economy, with events in the Middle East... But unfortunately that doesn't mean to say that the issue of climate change and the environment can be put to one side. Because even as those challenges are happening around us, this challenge continues. And it deepens.
And the report that will come out at the end of this week, the Fifth Assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, is the report that should shock political leadership back into the type of action that is absolutely essential, if we are to deal with this problem on the timescale that is necessary. As Mark says, 95% certain is a pretty large degree of certainty. Think I recall from memory that the number of people who think that Elvis is still alive is round about 5%, so it's um... [Audience laughter.] Of course, he may be, but... We shouldn't - sorry? [Responding to someone off-camera.] We shouldn't count on it.
So, in addition to that, by the way, they did a review, incidentally, of thousands of different scientific papers, the overwhelming majority of which came to the same conclusion - that this is a man-made problem. And right round the world, virtually wherever you go, right now, people are talking about the changes in their climate. So, I think, in a sense, the case is very, very clear. The question is: how do we instil the necessary sense of urgency, and how do we mobilise for action?
There are some good signs. The President of the United States' speech in June and the commitments that he made, I think, are tremendously important. There's now actually a chance that the targets that have been set in the US are met. The cooperation - albeit in a limited way but still an important way - between the United States and China is important. The new commitments of the Chinese leadership are ambitious commitments. They're going to need to be ambitious, but they're there and they're going to be taken seriously.
And even over our way, in the UK, one of the things I'm most pleased about is that though, when we were first taking action, during my government, on these issues, there was heated political debate around them, there is now, if you like, what I would call very healthy competition in the UK to see who is the most green - who can motivate and activate this agenda the quickest.
And in cities all over the world, people are taking action. In addition to all of that, through business and the investment from business in the science and technology, we're getting, all the time, new innovations, reductions in cost of old innovations, technologies becoming more widely used and more available. And there is this huge, palpable sense amongst the public that things have to be done.
So, my plea today is very, very simple and clear. I mean, I've attended, I think, each one of these events, and the New York Climate Week, and at each stage we've reiterated, obviously, the importance of this issue and the need for action. I think right now is when the political leadership needs to be, as it were, supported and pushed, from the bottom up, by a combination of serious business people, community organisations, ordinary members of the public and, of course, those organisations, specifically, who work in this issue and who have produced much of the evidence to support the case for action.
So if you're a political leader right now and you've got all these different priorities, and people are clamouring at you to deal with the economy and the problems of security, and so on, the political leadership need to know - because I think, in essence, they are predisposed to support action - but they need to know that there is this huge effort and force behind them that is propelling them towards the action that is necessary.
I am not pessimistic about this issue, by the way. I am, on balance, optimistic. I think the direction of policy is very clear - it's in favour of action. What I worry about is the speed. And the scale of this problem is not diminishing, it's probably growing. So it is the urgency that is - that is there, that should be pushing us towards action that is stronger, that is firmer, that is more united - globally and locally. It's possible to do. But it's far easier to get it done if there is this sense of a unified public sentiment urging upon the political leadership the right thing.
Because I think after this panel assessment at the end of this week, there will no longer be any serious doubt in the minds of serious people that this is an urgent and serious problem. The question is: can we find the means of galvanising the leadership to act in the way that it should. Thank you. [Audience applause.]