Climate: Britain is using its presidencies of the G8 and EU to advance an agenda on climate change, the British ambassador tells Dick Ahlstrom, Science Editor
Adopting an environmentalist's perspective is not a new position for the UK and predates the international Kyoto agreement on greenhouse gas restrictions, according to Britain's ambassador to Ireland, Stewart Eldon. Successive UK governments back to the Thatcher years have supported measures to reduce the advance of global warming, he says. "For us this is not new."
What is new is Britain's decision to use its current G8 presidency and its forthcoming EU presidency to leverage more international agreement on the issue. "What we've got here is a conjunction of two presidencies. It gives the debate the sort of nudge it needs," says Mr Eldon, who has been ambassador here since April 2003. "If we can use the conjunction of the G8 and the EU presidencies then that is a really good thing."
Britain has organised a series of high-level meetings during the presidencies, all focusing on climate change. The first, a scientific meeting held last month in Exeter, put the frighteners on delegates by mapping out the risks posed and consequences of inaction on global warming. The meeting delivered "greater clarity and reduced uncertainty about climate change", Mr Eldon said.
The next gets under way next Tuesday in London with a two-day meeting involving 20 energy and environment ministers from the G8 and 12 leading developing countries including China, India, Brazil and South Africa.
This meeting will "consider the scale of energy demand over the next few decades", says Mr Eldon. It will also look at how technology could help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, particularly carbon dioxide.
The first meeting set the scientific agenda, and the second brings together political policymakers, he explains. "This is where we want the politicians." Then in May the G8 presidency will host a workshop in Oxford on investment in energy research. "There we want to get to the R&D enablers," says Mr Eldon, the people who make the decisions about where to put research investment.
A key reason for the UK's more vigorous push on the environment is to improve co-operation among G8 members and emerging economies, he explains.
There is an "urgent need" for consensus, he says. "The G8 is a particularly good forum for that."
Mr Eldon points to China's plans to bring a 50-gigawatt coal-fired power station on line later this year and a second 60-gigawatt station into service in 2006. "If we are going to reduce carbon emissions we have to start thinking more about how to ameliorate the situation," he says.
Britain's concerns in particular are levelled at the US, the biggest producer of greenhouse gases in the world. It has consistently refused to ratify the Kyoto accord, which seeks to reduce the greenhouse gases that feed global warming. President Bush leads the charge against Kyoto, claiming it will harm the US economy and that similar greenhouse gas curbs must also be applied to countries such as China.
British prime minister Tony Blair has been slow to heap overt criticism on the US administration for its failure to support Kyoto, however. When speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos in Switzerland last January he acknowledged that evidence for global warming was "disputed", a nod towards the US view. Yet he went out of his way to praise Mr Bush's inauguration speech, with its emphasis on freedom, for showing a "consistent evolution in US policy".
These sentiments are supported by Mr Eldon, who says that environmental initiatives are under way on the ground in individual US cities and states despite Washington's view. "It is not true to say the US government doesn't take account of the environmental issues," he argues. "They pay attention to what California does in terms of water and emissions."
The US concern is with the Kyoto agreement itself, he adds. "I don't think there is any problem, the US knows there is a climate-change issue out there. The difficulty is how that should be addressed."
More meetings are planned when the UK's EU presidency starts in July, says Mr Eldon. There will be a session on "environmentally friendly vehicles", with a date yet to be set.
There will also be meetings related to Africa, which itself is a "leitmotiv of both presidencies", he says. The UK will publish research into the impacts of climate change being experienced across Africa. It will also look at how this will affect economies already struggling with other issues, including HIV.
Doing nothing or delaying action on climate change is not an option, Mr Eldon maintains, with the Exeter meeting last month outlining the problem.
"A delay of 20 years in implementing Kyoto emissions reductions means you would have to do between three and seven times as much to achieve the Kyoto goals," he says.
That meeting also discussed the apparent increase in the frequency and severity of climate-change-related events. There is a "strong economic imperative" to do something, he believes.
The heat waves across the Continent in 2003 resulted in 26,000 premature deaths and cost EU economies an estimated $13.5 billion. The 2002 flooding that struck Germany in particular killed 37 and caused damage worth $16 billion.
Britain is performing well in terms of Kyoto, says Mr Eldon. The UK must reduce emission levels measured in 1990 by 12.5 per cent before 2012. "We are well ahead of the Kyoto targets. We expect to do better than Kyoto," he says. Emissions had dropped by 15.3 per cent by 2002, and its carbon dioxide emissions have also fallen by 8.7 per cent.