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- Listen Again (until 13th July) to Tony Blair on Climate Change on Radio 4’s ‘Today’ programme, Monday 6th July (5 mins only.) Scroll along to about 25 minutes from end of the 3 hour programme. Blair emphasises that countries should use “existing clean technologies” to reduce short-term carbon emissions. The interviewer, Roger Harrabin, tries to get him to look back at his government’s earlier decisions on “leaving the technologies to fight it out”. Mr Blair refused to look back with regret on a question regarding “the Treasury’s” stance over technology and renewable energy, which was reputedly limited financially by Gordon Brown as Chancellor. The Stern Review of 2006 was BLAIR’S baby, not Brown’s. And Mr Blair seems unwilling to drop his then chancellor in the “renewable” pile. Good try though, Today.
- [READ FULL TRANSCRIPT here below of Blair on 'Today'. Thanks to regular commenter, Margaret.]
Comment at end
8th July, 2009
Tony Blair has long led on climate issues, both here in Britain and worldwide
Visit the Climate Group website here
In what some might see as an alternative position to the hairshirt remedies recommended by some governments, this organisation looks at the issues of global warming and climate change through the focused eye of business.
This report is published as the G8 meet in Italy and in the run-up to the Copenhagen Climate meeting in December 2009.
BREAKING THE CLIMATE DEADLOCK
New report from Tony Blair sets out practical technology solutions to tackle climate change
Tony Blair today published ‘Technology for a Low Carbon Future’ which sets out practical solutions to tackle climate change through technology.
The report comes just days before President Obama chairs a meeting of the major economies to discuss progress towards a new global climate agreement at Copenhagen later this year.
The report finds that 70% of the reductions needed by 2020 can be achieved by investing in energy efficiency – lighting, vehicles, buildings and motors – and reducing deforestation.
The report concludes that the strategy that should be adopted at the MEF and into Copenhagen should be to focus on existing energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies, along with efforts to halt deforestation, which can deliver major short-term cuts in emissions, while we invest in next generation technologies – carbon capture and storage, new approaches to nuclear and solar, and emerging biotech based solutions – that will drive down emissions through to the middle of the century.
(The main report findings are at Tony Blair’s website here)
[...]
Having been the first major head of government to bring climate change to the top of the international political agenda at the Gleneagles G8 summit in 2005, Tony Blair is now leading the ‘Breaking the Climate Deadlock‘ initiative, a strategic partnership with The Climate Group, through which he is working with world leaders to bring consensus on a new and comprehensive international climate policy framework.
The Climate Group is an independent NGO working internationally with business and government leaders to advance practical policies and technologies necessary to cut global emissions and drive a prosperous low carbon economy.
You can download the full report here.
VIDEO – TONY BLAIR ON BREAKING THE CLIMATE DEADLOCK (14m 21s)
More video from the Tony Blair YouTube channel.
SO WHO, WHAT IS ‘THE CLIMATE GROUP’?
BACKGROUND
The Climate Group’s CEO is Steve Howard: “Steve is the CEO of The Climate Group which he co-founded in late 2003. Steve has worked on global social and environmental issues from within business, NGO and UN settings. He has lead the establishment of the Climate Group in the US, Australia, China, India, Canada and Brussels. He Chairs the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Climate Change and is an Advisor to the Virgin Earth Challenge.
Whilst at the Climate Group, Steve has advised many companies, including assisting HSBC in becoming the world’s first carbon neutral Fortune 100 company ahead of schedule; BSkyB in becoming the first Carbon Neutral Media Company; and News Corporation in the development of the Climate and Energy Initiative. He worked with the City of London to help establish the London Climate Change Agency and found the C40 large cities initiative. Steve has worked with many State Governments.”
MEMBERS – It lists major international companies and organisations. American states, Canadian provinces and Australia (as a country and some named states ) figure as Members. In Britain the Greater London Authority whose current mayor is the Conservative Boris Johnson, is aso NAMED as a member.
ASSOCIATES – British based ‘Associates’ include the Mayor of London, Barclaycard, British Gas, Business in the Community, the Church of England, Coca Cola, Sky, The Government’s Act on CO2 Campaign, Tesco and The National Trust.
The American list of Associated includes several cities - Boston, Chicago, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Seattle. There are Autralian and European international organisations an companies.
PARTNERS include sustainable devleopment organisations and businesses. It refers at this page to the Office of Tony Blair as a ‘partner‘ although his office is not listed on the Partners page.
On this page States & Regions (scroll down on right) are listed “Leading Climate Policies” (by states, regions and provinces). Presumably these policies, including those of Scotland and Wales, are to be applauded and/or recommended by the Climate Group. No mention is made of the overall government of Great Britain.
I found that rather odd, since Britain is committed, following Blair’s leading with this at the G8 in 2005. Perhaps Britain’s commitment is to be taken for granted. Or is there another reason?
Open letter from Leslie Dighton, LSE governor
From the Politics of Climate Change, July 6, 2009 · Leave a Comment
Open letter to the organisers and participants of the politics of climate change conference with special reference to the contributions by Tony Blair, Martin Rees, Richard Lambert and David Cote.
Congratulations to the organisers for an unusually well constructed day on an unusually complex issue. What was its conclusion?
The key one got said at the conference – the brutal truth is we are missing the key targets – but it remained in the small print of the main debate. 20 years of serious scientific understanding and three years of intensive public awareness later, there is no decline in the trend of emissions outputs nor even a deceleration. Given the propulsion of population numbers and consumption appetite it is very difficult to have confidence that the upward trend is going to be reversed. As a measure of the problem, during the day of the conference itself, 100m tonnes of CO2 was added to the great stock pile in the sky, net of whatever declining proportion the oceans and forests are able to reabsorb. It is as if we continue to picnic by a stream with a wall of water mounting out of sight and out of mind round the corner.
It appeared that there was a very common agreement and understanding of this problem at the Conference, although all were broadly positive about its manageability. A clear signal on carbon price and political recognition that energy was going to be more expensive in the future were important preconditions. It was also implicitly agreed by all the speakers that nothing can effectively happen until each business sector has the necessary economic, regulatory, motivational, funded framework agreed and supported by Government to change the existing business models. The practical question is how can these frameworks be put in place speedily and faster than the science worsens.
To get the right urgency we need science to scream out yet more loudly than it is that political and business approaches are not evolving at the same speed as the problem measured in the only way that matters, emissions outputs now and at clearly identified breakpoints in the near medium future. We also need to describe the situation as it really is which is not a dream but a nightmare of complexity, risk, vested (but not necessarily bad) interests and dreadful uncertainty. We need the second half of Martin Luther King’s philosophy that asserts “we will overcome” which was not at all obvious when it was said.
David Cote’s six constraints and seven propositions on efficiency get to the nub of sector by sector action needed to get all entrepreneurs to pluck the low lying fruit. How best to make that happen?
Tony Blair instinctively put his finger on leadership as the answer. Is this where the Policy Network can make the next and perhaps most important contribution?
Inevitably this first conference could only put the issue on the table. My suggestion would be we need a second, urgently focused entirely on constraints and priority actions for each major stream of energy and industrial activity, working in smaller groups with report back mechanisms to the full body. I am sure there would be widespread support. If the findings of such a conference were then taken up by the Corporate leaders Group and the CBI and supported by Government we might then have a real practical launch pad for incentivised action.
Leslie Dighton is a governor at the LSE
TRANSCRIPT OF TONY BLAIR ON ‘TODAY’ PROGRAME, MONDAY 6th July, 2009
JOHN HUMPHREYS: Tony Blair is going to tell rich nations today to use ‘existing clean technologies’ to reach short term emissions targets on climate change. In a report published in conjunction with The Climate Group ahead of this week’s G8 summit in Italy – the Climate Group led by businesses – Mr Blair is also going to say that poor countries should be paid to protect their forests. Tony Blair spoke to the BBC’s environment analyst Roger Harabin ahead of the report’s publication.
TONY BLAIR: Look, I think it’s perfectly understandable if at a time of major economic crisis people are very daunted by the additional challenge of climate change. I think the single most important thing that we found when we looked into it is that in the short term a very large amount, almost three quarters of what you want to do, can come from either existing and known technologies – things like energy efficiency, deforestation, dealing with those issues and longer term provided we take the decisions NOW to start investing there WILL be technologies that allow us to reach that global target of halving emissions by 2050.
ROGER HARABIN: You’ve been to many G8 meetings yourself. They tend to be platitudinous. This G8 for instance – the Americans who’d been resisting even the insertion in the text of the notion that the world should stick to a 2 degree celsius temperature rise at maximum which is considered to be as you know a danger, a severe danger threshold. Can you really hope that things will change this time round?
TONY BLAIR: Sure, you’ll get all sorts of wrestling over bits of the text, but we have an American administration that’s committed to tackling climate change. We have a Chinese administration that is no longer saying ‘well it’s you guys who’ve created the problem you solve it’, but has absolutely and thoroughly immersed itself er … in trying to deal with this challenge and you have a general acceptance I think on the part of most sensible people that this is necessary to deal with it and we have to deal with it. This is now at the stage where, if you like, it’s being taken out of the hands of campaigners – not that the campaign’s not immensely important – but into the hands of the people who are going to have to decide the practical policy consequences and get the job done.
ROGER HARABIN: The report says goverments should adopt a strategic approach to ensure critical technologies arrive on time. If you look back on your spell in charge the Treasury had an approach which said ‘well, we’ll let the technologies fight it out for themselves’ and as a result the UK has one of the worst renewable performances in renewable energy in Europe with one of the best reserves of renewable energy. With hindsight would you run that policy differently?
TONY BLAIR: Well I think, you know you’re, you know investigating one of the right ways to deal with this, there’s bound to be a certain as there was a few years back a reluctance on the part of goverment to start committing to this type of technology or that technology but I think we’re a long way further forward now .
ROGER HARABIN: I just wondered if you had your time again would you run that technology policy rather differently to get us in a better position on renewables than we are in now?
TONY BLAIR: Well I think you can always go retrospective, but um …
ROGER HARABIN: And the answer is?
TONY BLAIR: And the answer is I’Il think we’ll go … look further ahead for the future.
JOHN HUMPHREYS: Tony Blair talking to Roger Harabin.
RELATED
- Interesting how this site, reporting on the quake-zone summit, suggests you watch Tony Blair on CNN – People evidently KNOW where to look for leadership on this.
- G8 and developing countries differ on emissions cuts. But the spin doesn’t exactly tell you that.
- This site has many links to Blair quotes on the issues of climate change. The writer starts from the angle that it’s “you scratch MY back” time all round. Well, maybe. Presumably it’d be far better if he/they all stood up and said ‘we know what needs to be done, but we don’t know anyone who’s up for it’ ?! It IS business, and we NEED business leaders to be willing to become involved and take the risks, considering the unknowns and questionables.
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Tags: carbon emissions target, Climate Group, G8 Italy, John Humphreys, Roger Harrabin, Technology for a low carbon future, Today Blair on climate, Today Radio 4, Tony Blair, YouTube video Blair climate
