Political leaders rebuild consensus on climate change after UK floods and wild weather elsewhere
Wed 26 February 2014
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Labour leader Ed Miliband has said that the flooding crisis should be seen as a wakeup call for Britain to act on climate change, while criticising prime minister David Cameron for creating a “false economy” over the government’s flood aid measures.
Climate change is likely to be a factor in the extreme weather that has hit much of the UK in recent months, the Met Office's chief scientist has said (report by the BBC).
Political leaders around the world have been strongly reasserting their belief in the reality of man-made climate change following periods of exceptional and damaging weather such as the serious flooding in the UK. Pressure was intensified in the UK when the Met Office issued a statement saying that "all the evidence suggests there is a link [with flooding] to climate change,"
Dame Julia Slingo, the Met Office's Chief Scientist said the variable UK climate meant there was "no definitive answer" to what caused the recent storms.
"But all the evidence suggests there is a link to climate change, There is no evidence to counter the basic premise that a warmer world will lead to more intense daily and hourly rain events."
The Labour Party leader Ed Miliband, raising the issue of climate change at Prime Ministers' Questions for what was reported to be the first time in this Parliament, said: “These floods and storms should be a wakeup call for us. I think it is a national security issue."
Miliband’s comments came as former deputy prime minister Lord Prescott called for cross party cooperation to tackle climate change.
The Prime Minister, David Cameron also issued his strongest declaration that climate change is man-made, saying it is one of the most serious threats facing Britain and the rest of the world.
In response to Miliband's question, Cameron replied: "I believe man-made climate change is one of the most serious threats that this country and this world faces."
The Chancellor, George Osborne, who was criticised by green Tories in 2011 when he said Britain should not cut its carbon emissions at a faster rate than its EU partners, prepared the ground for the PM's remarks when he said he accepted climate change was man-made. But he told business leaders in Hong Kong it should be tackled in "as cheap a way as possible".
UK ministers have otherwise been queuing up to profess their belief in man-made climate change. Defence Secretary Philip Hammond said that climate change is "clearly a factor" in the period of stormy weather the UK has been experiencing.
Even Education Secretary Michael Gove, announcing himself as a 'shy green' at a London event to launch a report by the new Conservative Environment Network (CEN), said that man's impact on the climate is "unarguable".
Organised by the Conservative MP Zac Goldsmith's brother Ben, the CEN represents a fight-back by 'green Tories' against climate sceptical attacks from sections of the party.
The CEN's press release says that it represents a group of the world's most influential centre-right thinkers from politics and academia who have come together to reinvigorate environmental debate on the right of politics.
A group of modernising pro-green Tories - the 2020 Group - including energy minister Greg Barker, Laura Sandys MP and Claire Perry MP, recently published a manifesto outlining plans for a £5bn-a-year boost to economic growth, creating 300,000 jobs, by pursuing environmentally friendly policies.
In a sign of their determination to challenge Conservative climate-change sceptics, the group said that the most successful economies of the future will embrace both the environment and competitiveness.
The floods and surrounding political debate also seem to have influenced public opinion. A YouGov poll found that nearly half of respondents believe the UK floods are linked to climate change, a significant shift compared with a similar poll carried out before the worst of the flooding occurred.
Reuters reports that wild weather elsewhere in the world has also put climate change back on the agenda more widely. Bitter cold in the United States and Australia's hottest summer have revived discussion about climate change which has been limited due to the immediate pressures caused by the struggling world economy.
US Secretary of State John Kerry was the most outspoken, calling climate change "perhaps the most fearsome weapon of mass destruction" and ridiculing those who doubt that climate change is man-made.
U.S. President Barack Obama and French President Francois Hollande last week urged an "ambitious" climate deal in 2015, which would come into force from 2020.
Announcing the
implementation plans for five new climate change initiatives, the U.S.-China Climate Change Working Group (CCWG) which was launched last year issued a statement saying: "In light of the overwhelming scientific consensus on climate change and its worsening impacts, and the related issue of air pollution from burning fossil fuels, the United States and China recognize the urgent need for action to meet these twin challenges".
Both the US and China reaffirmed their commitment to contribute significantly to successful 2015 global efforts to meet this challenge.
Almost 200 governments have agreed to work out a deal at a summit in Paris in December 2015 to combat climate change. The deal would replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol - the world's first attempt to agree emissions reductions which was spurned by the United States and which did not impose limits on rapidly developing economies like India and China.
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