It’s realism, not inflated rhetoric, that’s going to get us the progress we need at the forthcoming international climate change negotiations in Cancun.
With just days to go, few seasoned followers of these talks believe Cancun is the place where the world will agree the comprehensive, legally binding global agreement to tackle climate change we need. Vital though these talks are, we must change the culture of environmentalism from an over-reliance on “grand summitry” to supporting the practical day-to-day changes which will actually deliver the goals.
But they’d be wrong to think that this new realism represents a lack of ambition or commitment on behalf of the UK Government. Far from it. The UK can’t afford for Cancun to be another missed opportunity. A global climate change agreement is still without doubt firmly in the UK’s national interest and we need one as soon as possible.
The “fast start” funding for climate change action in developing countries which was agreed in Copenhagen, as well as setting out the structures for climate finance and investment beyond 2012.
The recent report from the Advisory Group on Finance to the UN’s Secretary-General was significant. It concluded that the world can meet the goal set in Copenhagen of mobilising $100billion a year by 2020 of public and private finance to assist poorer countries achieve sustainability. It won’t be easy, but it can be done.
This will involve getting private sector finance flowing and I want the City of London to be the global capital of the new, fast-growing green-investment sector. That’s why we set up the Capital Markets Climate Initiative – to dismantle the barriers to low-carbon growth and facilitate a new wave of green investment in emerging economies.
But even as governments prepare for Cancun, many businesses are getting on with practical cooperation on low-carbon investment, as demonstrated by the report on November 15 from the UK-India Business Leaders’ Climate Group. The report by this new group — chaired by Sir Stuart Rose and Mr Rajan Bharti Mittal – was the first of its kind where business leaders from a developed and developing country have come together to consider the practical steps necessary to deliver a low-carbon economy.
And while companies the world over aren’t hanging back from getting involved in the multitrillion-pound low-carbon goods and services market – currently growing at 4 per cent a year — they are sending an ever louder and clearer message to governments.
They are calling for governments to join together in providing the long-term certainty and global framework within which they can invest in low-carbon technologies. They want a globally binding climate change agreement. It’s in all our interests as a key step to unlocking the “green growth” agenda we all need to see.
That’s a message that I’ve heard loud and clear and will be taking with me to Cancun.
So while a binding deal at Cancun isn’t on the cards, concrete achievements are possible.
The UK Government won’t tire from working inside and outside the negotiating room to make the progress required by the rate of climate change, and the businesses whose innovation and investment offer the best hope of a sustainable future.
