Gordon Brown Gets Tough On Climate Change Video

This video shows Gordon Brown talking at Lancaster House about the negotiations leading up to the Copenhagen conference. He talks about the great injustice of climate change, and also how Britain faces more draughts and floods if action is not taken soon. He urges the world leaders to get tough on climate change.

I agree this is a profound moment for the world, but he stumbles through his speech so quickly, it seems he needs to be somewhere else in a hurry. I wonder if he actually read the speech before he took the lectern. Maybe he was going to a meet Arnie afterwards or something.

Some of the main points are, he believes they can reach agreement at Copenhagen, but world leaders aren't working fast enough to come to agreements.  He says they must converge on principle issues such as binding economic caps, solar energy and carbon capture storage.

He mentions Lord Stern who produced a 700 page review on the economics of climate change in 2006. Stern has recently suggested people stop eating as much meat to reduce carbon emissions. According to him, the world needs to reduce the current world emissions from 50 gigatonnes per year, to 20 gigatonnes per year by 2050, this would require a cut to 44 gigatonnes per year by 2020.

According to Mr Brown:

"countries are undertaking action or have put forward offers to reduce levels to 46 to 49 gigatonnes by 2020, so they are looking for a further 4 or 5 gigatonnes of cuts"

He is convinced they can achieve this through a combination of efforts in developed and developing countries, and in global reductions in maritime and aviation emissions. I hope he's right but 5 gigatonnes is an awful lot of gas. I can't see it happening by talking to each other more, and making a few boats and planes more efficient.

Published - Wed 28th Oct 2009 15:55:29