Source: BBC Radio 4: Today Programme
URL: N/A
Date: 09/10/2013
Event: Britain should "continue to lead the charge" against fossil-fuel "enemy"
Credit: BBC Radio 4
People:
Sarah Montague: The head of the OECD, which is a sort of think tank for rich countries, is warning those countries that they can't bale out of a climate crisis in the same way they were able to rescue banks in the financial crisis. The Secretary-General, Angel Gurría, is giving a speech in London today, accusing countries of complacency and warning them about the consequences of their failure to tackle climate change. He's here in the studio with us now. Good morning.
Angel Gurría: Good morning.
Sarah Montague: Can you explain what parallels you see between the climate crisis and the financial one?
Angel Gurría: Well, it's very simple - we're accumulating these liabilities, which is more and more gases that are going to provoke warming, and it's an intergenerational responsibility, just like the debt. The only difference is the gases will linger around for a long time. Over two or three years of surpluses you can do away with the debt - you can't do away with the gases. So we have to be extra careful. Here it's something that is going to affect the generations to come.
Sarah Montague: So countries - countries like Britain - are complacent.
Angel Gurría: Countries like Britain have been leading the charge. And they have to continue to lead the charge, to set the example. You legislated in 2008, while the EU was still bungling with their ETS system, you know, their Emissions Trading System. You legislated, you made it a mandatory... So you have been leading the charge, you have to continue to do that.
Sarah Montague: So - you'll know that the Chancellor has said that we should not be in front of the rest of the world. Sure - be near the front but we shouldn't be ahead of everybody.
Angel Gurría: Frankly, somebody has to lead. And I have been very proud and very happy to see the UK lead on this. And it is because of the leadership of the UK that the rest - the European Union has, you know, done more about it, I think, they saw that this is the way to go, and for the rest of the world, too.
Sarah Montague: You'll know we've had a row here about energy prices, and Ed Miliband, the Leader of the Opposition, promising he's going to freeze energy prices, and various other commitments made by the government as a result of that, not least on fuel prices and lowest tariffs. Is that the wrong way to go about it, because everybody has to have - end up paying more for their energy.
Angel Gurría: This is the extraordinary paradox that we're facing today. We're doing everything that we can in order to promote the use of fossil-fuel bases emissions, you know, and at the same time, this is the enemy. This is what we have to fight, this is what we have to avoid. So, the question is: now that we are transforming the world - we grew up with scarcity of oil and fuels and everything... Now we are entering a world of relative abundance, where everybody's investing to see what more you can get out of fossil fuels. So we're really going to have to think very hard about this, because we seem to be doing something or recommending something counter-intuitive, but it's not, it's simply that we're looking at 2050, we're looking at the rest of the century.
Sarah Montague: Angel Gurría, thank you very much.
Angel Gurría: Thank you.