29/03/2006
- Tony Blair needs to urgently clarify his plans
for how the world should tackle climate change,
warns WWF the global conservation organization.
Blair's speech in New Zealand
earlier today (Wednesday) shows that he clearly
understands the urgency of climate change. However,
some fundamental details on how he thinks the problem
should be addressed remain vague.
The Prime Minister stressed that
big decisions should be tackled this year and not
delayed further. He said that a future global solution
must be outlined at the G8 meetings this year and
that this must include the involvement of large-scale
polluters, such as the US, China and India.
Blair added that the world should
agree to ”stabilize” climate change, and that to
do that it needed to give ”certainty to governments
and to business that this is where the world is
moving”.
The Heads of Government of the
European Union stated last spring that global average
temperature must stay below the danger threshold
of 2°C, in comparison to pre-industrial levels.
WWF urges the Prime Minister to stand by this agreed
EU position.
“WWF wants the Prime Minister
to stop making vague statements about “stabilisation
goals”, instead he should be pushing for other governments
to get on board with the EU vision of avoiding dangerous
climate change,” said Jennifer Morgan, Director
of WWF’s Climate Change Programme. “While it should
be guided by an ambitious goal to avoid dangerous
climate change, it would be foolish to exchange
a clear and binding framework with a vague idea
on new technologies. Technology is vital but it
needs to be driven by targets.”
"The UK's - and Blair's -
best contribution to fighting climate change and
encouraging investment is to reduce emissions from
UK industry through a strong contribution to the
European Emissions Trading Scheme" says Keith
Allott, Head of WWF UK’s climate change programme.
"The government's plans unveiled yesterday
are painfully insufficient and will further not
help the UK meet its climate change targets."
Editor's notes
WWF is now known simply by its initials and the
panda logo.
1. The European Emissions Trading
Scheme is the key initiative through which the EU
intends to meet its climate change targets. However,
the UK government’s review of its own Climate Change
Programme, released yesterday, suggests a reduction
in emissions from power stations and heavy industry
of between only three and eight million tons of
carbon from business-as-usual projections under
the next phase of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme
(from 2008 to 2012). At the bottom end of this range
industry will be allowed to pollute more than in
the current phase of the scheme.
2. A study commissioned by WWF—
Arctic Climate Change with a 2 degree Celsius Global
Warming by Dr Mark New of Oxford University — shows
that dangerous levels of climate change could be
reached in just over 20 years time. The review of
global climate simulations suggests that if nothing
is done, the earth will have warmed by 2 degrees
C (3.6 degrees F) above pre-industrial levels (c.
10000) by some time between 2026 and 2060. In the
Arctic this could lead to a loss of summer sea ice,
species, and some types of tundra vegetation as
well as to a fundamental change in the ways of life
of Inuit and other arctic residents.
