LOCATION Science Museum

SPEAKER Foreign Secretary David Miliband

EVENT Launch of the climate change map

DATE 22/10/2009

David Miliband: Thank you very much to the Science Museum for combining their efforts with ours for today’s launch. We haven’t been able to find in the Foreign Office records an example of a Foreign Secretary speaking at the Science Museum, and certainly not one who got a D in A Level Physics so we’re, we’re not planning to make a habit of it.

But I do think that this is the place to discuss what Al Gore in his, in the strap line for his film An Inconvenient Truth described as a planetary emergency but which, in fact, John Beddington’s presentation shows Al Gore got wrong. It’s not a planetary emergency, it’s a human emergency and this is about the lives of hundreds of millions of people around the world.
The reason for publishing this map, nearly fifty days before the Copenhagen Conference, is very simple. 

For too many people, not just in our own country but around the world, the penny hasn’t yet dropped.  The penny hasn’t dropped that this climate change challenge is real and it’s happening now.  The penny hasn’t dropped that the effects are not in to some far flung future but will actually be affecting hundreds of millions of people certainly within my lifetime and these sort of changes, the four degree changes, within my children’s lifetime.

The penny hasn’t dropped too that Copenhagen is the chance to address on a global scale the climate change challenge and the mitigation of it and the adaptation to it.  There isn’t yet that sense of urgency and drive and animation about the Copenhagen Conference.  And the work that the Prime Minister’s been leading, he spoke at a major conference on Monday that Ed was chairing of the major emitters, the work that’s being done around Europe and, certainly, some of the discussions internationally are trying to make sure that the importance of the next fifty days are properly understood.

I just want to reflect today on three foreign policy aspects of the presentation that you’ve seen and of the agenda that we face.  For some time I think it’s been clear that climate change is not actually an environmental issue.  It’s an economic issue, it’s a cultural issue, it’s a technological issue, and after the presentation by eleven retired American generals three years ago people began to think of it as a foreign policy issue.  And so the first thing I want to bring to the surface today or highlight is three aspects of the map that you can see and that which you can study rather more carefully.

The first is the dangers of water shortage. If you think about the sources of insecurity around the world water shortage must be one of the greatest. The figures that John’s presented, and you probably can’t see the, the, the, all of the details here, but the figures that show that the number of people suffering from severe water shortages could, will rise under a four degree world eight fold, to around four billion. Increased drought and desertification is greatly going to reduce the available food too for a rising population, so you’ve got a scissors effect there of quite dramatic proportions.

Secondly, and there are obvious foreign policy consequences to that, secondly is the dangers of mass migration.  We already see the tensions around the world of some two hundred million people on the move. The figures that you can extrapolate from this work suggest that there will be further unprecedented mass migration of some further hundred and fifty to two hundred million people on the move. 

The Maldives example is the most obvious. The Maldive Cabinet had their under water meeting to show what the Maldives’ future is going to be under the water level rises that you’ve seen.  But you just have to think of Bangladesh, a, a country which faces twenty five to forty per cent of its land mass being covered in water in the course of this century without mitigation and adaptation of a fundamental kind.

And fine, third, thirdly the (indistinct) the, the dangers of increased pressure and conflict; one of the most dangerous parts of the world is obviously the Middle East, five per cent of the world’s population live in the Middle East, they have access to one per cent of the world’s water. Those sort of strains and stresses can only be exacerbated by the trends that we’ve seen here. 

And when we had our first press conference in this series in early September I made the point that the UN Security Council very rarely discussed climate change at the moment. The UN Security Council is dedicated to addressing issues of the threats to international peace and security. If you think about the issues that I’ve just raised in terms of security, migration and conflict you can see that a four degrees world is one in which the UN Security Council is going to be dominated by questions related to climate change.

The second foreign policy aspect I just want to touch on is the multilateral challenge that is faced by the negotiators at Copenhagen led in our case by Ed and with him the rest of our European Union colleagues representing a common position. 

This is I think probably the most complex international negotiations ever attempted because it’s obviously about economics but it’s also about technology and, as the Prime Minister explained on Monday, it’s significantly about finance as well.  And I think it’s very important not to underestimate the scale of the challenge to the multilateral system.

But the point I want to make is that if the multilateral system is unable to address an issue like climate change then people are go, around the world are going to say that the multilateral system isn’t worth its name, and that is very dangerous for those of us who believe that in a world of international interdependence we need a stronger and more effective multilateral system. 

So the test in December is not just a climate change test, it’s a test of our ability to rise to a challenge that is widely recognised to be a, a defining one for (indistinct) for our generation.

But the third foreign policy point I’d just like to make is to reflect on the question of whether or not a, a foreign policy needs to be ethical, in other words if it needs to be values based. And in all the talk of the science and the technology that underpins the publication today I think it’s very important not to lose the importance of values. 

Because if you look hard at the map what you will see is that the poorest people in the poorest countries are most exposed to the dangers of climate change. Not just because they can less afford, least afford the adaptation that’s necessary, but also because they are exposed to its greatest effects. 

But there’s also a flip side of the coin. If there is to be an international agreement it needs to be based on very clear values. The first value is that the greatest burden must be borne by those who have the greatest capacity to meet it. In other words richest countries have to do the most. And so the social justice principle is essential if there is to be a climate change deal.

The second value is the value of mutual responsibility. In 1992 the Rio Conference agreed the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities. In other words it’s not just true that the richest have to do the most, everyone has to do something. And that is a very, very important principle in, in international, in an interdependent world.

And third and final point I want to make, the third and final value, is the value of internationalism. This negotiation will only succeed if it is a genuinely global agreement. Because the Kyoto Protocol was pioneering in many, many ways; our country has shown that you can combine economic growth with meeting your environmental and climate change commitments but it wasn’t a global treaty of the sort that we need. And that’s why I think the principle of internationalism, the value of internationalism, is at stake in the negotiations ahead.

Unidentified Audience Member:  The current Government campaign public awareness which includes a television advertisement which has created a bit of a fuss. Is this perhaps a sign that you’re fearful of a possible public backlash when people start having to make sacrifices and start paying for the commitments that you’re hoping to make in Copenhagen?

David Miliband: I just want to make a point about the global negotiations because the truth is that not just in this country but in other countries too there’s going to have to be strong acts of leadership and I think one of the most significant things that’s happening is that while Environment Ministers have been engaged on this issue for many years Foreign Ministers have got interested over the last few years, this has now being taken up at the level of leaders of countries, heads of Government, and I think that is the significance of the Prime Minister’s proposals on climate finance, it’s the significance of President Obama’s interest in this issue, it’s the significance of President Hu’s contribution to the UN Special Session on Climate Change.

And I think that what we have to understand that in the end it’s going to be a relatively small number of decisions, never mind decision makers, that hold the key to whether or not the leadership comes together and the world is spurred on or not.  And those issues are going to come down to a fundamental question which is whether all of the political leaders believe that they’re willing to take on the potential burden, the potential flack from attacks within their own countries that say we can’t afford this.

That’s going to be the essential question that’s in the mind of every leader whether they can’t, can afford it in terms of their own economic trajectory, whether they can afford it financially. And that is a quintessentially political decision and it’s one that requires a perspective over a long term not just the short term.

The power of the sort of examples that you cite, which exist in the developing world as well as in the developed world, which exist in China and India in terms of renewable energy and other issues as well as in the UK in terms of zero carbon housing and community is that they show it’s possible. They break the naysayers who, who exist in every country and say look we can’t afford to do this because they show that you can actually afford to do, to do it.

And so in a way the, what we’ve got to do is make sure that he sort of commitments that have been made in this country to 2050 for an eighty per cent reduction in emissions on 1990 levels they’re matched in other countries.  We’ve got to hold the line in Europe, and I think it’s important to say to people here that the General Affairs Council on Monday and then the European Council on Friday will be discussing climate financing and Europe has to hold the line.  It’s established itself as a global leader by my goodness now is not the time to relax or to relent, we’ve got to say on the front foot.

All of the rich countries have got to do enough to show the developing world that they’re serious and that is, I think, the importance not just of the Japanese step forward but also the Australian commitments and then the developing countries have got to show that they’re able to step us as well in a way that is proportionate and appropriate to the burden that they should bear. And that is the political two step or three step that needs to take place and I think we shouldn’t lose sight of that in the discussion of the local examples, we should the local examples to spur on the big political step.

Unidentified Speaker: I’ve a question with regard to the United States because, obviously, we have heard of the commitments of China, Japan and other countries but it, the Kyoto Protocol was finally not ratified by the United States and this time their leadership is very much necessary. How do you expect their commitment will be and do you think that, that this time they will commit ?

David Miliband: Well, obviously, the arrival of a new Administration with a strong set of campaign commitments in this area is very significant.  I think that the passage or the engagement of leading senators on this issue is obviously important because it was congress which didn’t pass the Kyoto Protocol after the signature by the Clinton Administration. And I think we’ve got to recognise that the Administration came in on January 20th so the UN process had been going for quite a long time by the time they came in to play.

But I think that the way that we in the UK have framed this, that we need a deal which is ambitious, fair and effective is something that can speak to the United States. Ambitious for obvious reasons that have been explained by the science, fair because everyone has to make a contribution and effective which I think is something that’s been a, a concern to make sure that the finance flows and other mechanisms actually go to the right place and in the right way.

And, certainly, I know that Mrs Clinton is thinking about the foreign policy aspects of this in a very substantial way. She’s rethinking the way American aid and other engagement works and I think that the climate change challenge fits in very well to the re-conception of America’s role in the world that the President has been so clear about.

Notes for Editors

 

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