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Source: Tony Blair Office
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair Delivered a speech at a three-day G8 meeting, urging the world’s top greenhouse gas emitters to fight climate change. The meeting comes after world nations agreed in Bali last December, to launch two years of U.N.-led talks on a global climate pact, following the issuing of a statement by the G8 leaders calling for strong and early action.
In the speech, Blair urged the world's top greenhouse gas emitters to launch a revolution to fight climate change, insisting that he will work to sell a new global framework to slash carbon emissions.
"We have reached the critical moment of decision on climate change. There are few, if any, genuine doubters left," Blair said, stating that failure to act on climate change would be “deeply and unforgivably irresponsible.” Despite the growth in awareness from both political leaders and the public, the problem “continues to get worse”.
Emphasising the “vast nature of the challenge” Blair commented on the likely effects of a growing world population combined with the industrialisation of developing countries, insisting that it would not be just to expect newly industrialising countries with huge, growing populations, to forgo economic expansion.
Concluding that small efforts alone will not solve the problem, Blair stated that “To transform the way the world grows, is unlikely to be done by measures, however well meaning, taken by individual people, companies and countries.” While such measures create innovation and awareness of options “without collective action, collectively agreed, at a global level, the revolution is unlikely to occur” Emphasising the need for a global deal, Blair talked of targets for the world in establishing an “effective, efficient and equitable framework for change”
Blair predicts an environmental technological revolution akin to the industrial revolution of the 19th century, stating that “The stuff of science fiction will become the stuff of daily life”
The Main dilemma in reaching the necessary global deal is that of how to cut a deal that can bring both the developed and developing countries comfortably on board. Blair asserted that “The UN and the UN alone is the right forum to reach the global agreement.”
He announced the expansion of work by The Climate Group, a cross industry body, now active around the world, which Blair himself will guide politically in striving to sketch out the elusive global deal, to produce “a framework or the basis for one that does what we need and does it in a way that is politically sellable”
Touching on the “renaissance of nuclear power” Blair reiterated the difficulties of negotiating the international machinery especially that of the UN, while constantly emphasizing that the importance of a rapid solution to the problem.
