Beckett: Global temperature rises ‘virtually unavoidable’
Worldwide temperature rises over the next few decades are “virtually unavoidable”, the Environment Secretary Margaret Beckett has said.
Speaking at the opening of an international science conference in Exeter on global warming, Ms Beckett said that with these temperature rises “significant impacts” are likely to occur.
And she urged the world to join together in urgent action to reduce emissions and avoid the worst effects of climate change.
Science, Ms Beckett said, had an important role to play in ascertaining how and where different levels of climate change will affect the world.
The first global agreement on climate change, Kyoto, comes into force on February 16, but this has been hamstrung by the refusal of the United States to sign up or consider emissions cuts.
In addition, it will only cut around three per cent from the predicted 30 per cent rise in C02 emissions from 1999-2010.
Ms Beckett said that Kyoto was an “essential first step and shows what can be done when the international community works together.”
She continued: “But we need to move forward through low carbon technology, greater energy efficiency, emissions trading schemes and the clean development mechanism which provides a novel way to slow growth in developing country emissions while at the same time providing resources and new technologies that will aid development. “
Scientists had to send a clear message to the world on the scale of the threat faced, she added, in saying that increases in emissions must stop and the world must move to a lower carbon economy.
Friends of Earth has strongly welcomed the Blair Government’s focus on climate change, but in a new report out today the group claims that the UK’s C02 emissions have not fallen since Labour came to power.
FOE director Tony Juniper, said: “Tony Blair wants to lead the world in the battle against global warming. But unless the UK makes sustained and significant cuts in its own emissions, the Prime Minister’s credibility and effectiveness on this issue will be seriously undermined.”
And the Liberal Democrats environment spokesman, Norman Baker, said: “Grandiose speeches on climate change are no substitute for action.
“The latest figures show that greater cuts in greenhouse gases are needed than previously thought. We need not only to meet the Kyoto targets, but also to agree further international reductions in emissions.”
