Climate Change: Our starting point

Our planet sustains life through a complex natural system of climate regulation which allows us to exist. We tamper with it at our peril. Over the long sweep of our history, that climate system has demonstrated volatility, sometimes on a devastating scale. The last thousand years of relative stability have led us to take the climate for granted. That stability is now under threat as a result of the undisputed fact that the world is warming.

The fact that the world is warming is undisputed.  An unprecedented consensus within the scientific community tells us that the warming will continue and carries with it major risks to our security and quality of life. The rise in greenhouse gases is already impacting a number of important biological systems, for example through increased acidification of the oceans and the shifting of the seasons. The future for millions of people is likely to include increased risk of flooding, more extreme weather events, reduced yield of food crops, and decreased water availability in regions that are already water scarce. That future will result in major social disruption and migration of populations. Furthermore, we were warned by scientists at the ‘Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change’ conference in 2005 that humanity is on course to cross temperature thresholds that may trigger large-scale, irreversible and catastrophic events – such as the melting of the Greenland ice-cap and the shutdown of the Gulf Stream that warms the North Atlantic countries, including Britain. It is becoming increasingly clear that climate change is a global security issue.

INDISPUTABLE SCIENTIFIC CONSENSUS
In shaping the human response to this threat, we must be led by robust science. The starting position of this Policy Group is shaped by our eminent scientific advisers. Their voice chimes with the majority view. We know that the activities of humans in burning fossil fuels and destroying forests have raised CO2 concentrations to unprecedented levels. We accept the science that establishes the link between those CO2 concentrations and undisputed global warming. We understand that if current trends continue, atmospheric CO2 levels will have reached more than 500 parts per million by 2050 and we may be locked into a dangerous level of climatic instability. Given the scale of potential human and financial cost, we believe that the precautionary principle is valid. It is time for greater urgency in addressing the one variable that we can assuredly control, namely the level of greenhouse gases that we emit.

CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE ECONOMY
Given the long life of capital stock, the next twenty years will be decisive in shaping our ability to deliver the radical reduction in emissions that scientists tell us is necessary by 2050. Dragging our feet on grounds of cost is no longer acceptable in the face of growing evidence of the cost of doing nothing.

The political challenge cannot be underestimated.  It will require extraordinary leadership to construct the international consensus behind the collective action that is required. It will prove a major test of our power to drive and share innovation. The issue brings us face to face with our responsibility to those we share the planet with, both human and animal, and the future generations who will follow us.  We understand that we are now ‘locked in’ to a level of further global warming. This will require a greater emphasis on well-coordinated policies to reduce the vulnerability of the most exposed countries. However we do not accept that it is too late to embark on a vigorous, long term strategy to reduce our emissions of carbon and other greenhouse gases. Failure to act now is likely to make the problem even bigger and more expensive to solve in the future.  Moreover, success can be good for the British economy. We can all profit from greater efficiency in our use of energy. We can take advantage of new economic opportunities around the development of clean technology in ways the UK is missing out on so far. It is in our national interest to reduce dependence on supplies of fossil fuel from increasingly expensive and volatile foreign sources. It has become clear that climate change policy is inextricably linked with our broad development goals and the alleviation of poverty, not least through promoting affordable, clean energy for all.

THE ROLE OF GOVERNMENT IN LEADERSHIP
Our starting position is one of optimism that we can build consensus around positive actions to reduce carbon emissions that make sense irrespective of how serious we perceive climate change risk. That optimism runs alongside a growing sense of urgency. The solution lies ultimately in our ability to collectively make a difference - as individuals, communities, nationally and globally.  Against this backdrop, we are clear that Government’s role is twofold. First, to help people understand both the risk and the opportunity. Second, to set the long-term framework that will allow us to minimise the former and maximise the latter.