Home » Opinion » Foreign Views
There is no Plan B for the planet
By Jose Manuel Barroso |
October 19, 2009, Monday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
I cannot open a newspaper or turn on the television without seeing images of collapsing icebergs, polar bears, or deforestation.
The people on this planet increasingly understand the scale of the problem (of climate change).
Of course, it is a moral issue, firstly in a development context where developing countries, as Kofi Annan has said so eloquently, will bear the brunt of climate change, while having the least means of tackling it; and secondly in an inter-generational context. We simply have no right to impose the pain and the cost of climate change on future generations.
But I want to say to you today that understanding the moral context is necessary but not sufficient. My goal is also to establish the business case for tackling climate change.
For it is not just a moral imperative, it is also an immense economic opportunity. Building the low-carbon economy that we need will unleash a surge of innovation, investment and jobs in clean technologies and products.
Take renewable energy for example, where Europe has committed to doubling its share to 20 percent by 2020. We think this will generate some 90 billion euros (US$134.3 billion) of additional investment in renewables, and some 700,000 new jobs, and reduce our oil and gas import bill by around 45 billion euros a year by 2020.
The message I have for you today is that green growth is not a pipe dream. It's reality. We can do it, and in concrete terms, we are doing it, now, in Europe. Our emissions per capita are now less than half of those of the US at the same level of output.
You only have to drive in from the airport here in Copenhagen to see how Denmark has led by example on wind power. So, if action against climate change is already happening, I hear you say, why do we need Copenhagen at all?
First, because globally, we have to avoid a free rider problem: the mistaken view that countries can stand back while others take the brunt of emissions reduction.
This is a mistake, not just because they will miss out on the wave of green growth, not just because this risks the specter of green protectionism, and not just because it threatens a deal in Copenhagen.
Most of all, it is a mistake because we are all in this together. No one country or group of countries can make sufficient emissions reduction to solve the problem.
If the industrialized world reduced its emissions to zero today, and if the developing countries continued with business as usual, we would still reach the dangerous level of 650 ppm (parts per million) by 2050.
We are not asking the same commitments from developing countries. Developing countries, especially the economically advanced among them, do not need to deliver binding targets, but they should "translate" their domestic actions into an overall agreement.
Developed countries have to put on the table binding economy-wide targets for CO2 reduction.
We have two short months to go until Copenhagen - less than 60 days, and in fact there is just one more week of negotiation, in Barcelona in November.
We still have a long way to go to achieve success. The way ahead is hard, but we cannot be distracted by talk of Plan B, or we will end up with Plan F - for failure.
Indeed, there is no Plan B, as we have not Planet B.
(The article is adapted from his speech at the Global Editor's Forum. The views are his own.)
The people on this planet increasingly understand the scale of the problem (of climate change).
Of course, it is a moral issue, firstly in a development context where developing countries, as Kofi Annan has said so eloquently, will bear the brunt of climate change, while having the least means of tackling it; and secondly in an inter-generational context. We simply have no right to impose the pain and the cost of climate change on future generations.
But I want to say to you today that understanding the moral context is necessary but not sufficient. My goal is also to establish the business case for tackling climate change.
For it is not just a moral imperative, it is also an immense economic opportunity. Building the low-carbon economy that we need will unleash a surge of innovation, investment and jobs in clean technologies and products.
Take renewable energy for example, where Europe has committed to doubling its share to 20 percent by 2020. We think this will generate some 90 billion euros (US$134.3 billion) of additional investment in renewables, and some 700,000 new jobs, and reduce our oil and gas import bill by around 45 billion euros a year by 2020.
The message I have for you today is that green growth is not a pipe dream. It's reality. We can do it, and in concrete terms, we are doing it, now, in Europe. Our emissions per capita are now less than half of those of the US at the same level of output.
You only have to drive in from the airport here in Copenhagen to see how Denmark has led by example on wind power. So, if action against climate change is already happening, I hear you say, why do we need Copenhagen at all?
First, because globally, we have to avoid a free rider problem: the mistaken view that countries can stand back while others take the brunt of emissions reduction.
This is a mistake, not just because they will miss out on the wave of green growth, not just because this risks the specter of green protectionism, and not just because it threatens a deal in Copenhagen.
Most of all, it is a mistake because we are all in this together. No one country or group of countries can make sufficient emissions reduction to solve the problem.
If the industrialized world reduced its emissions to zero today, and if the developing countries continued with business as usual, we would still reach the dangerous level of 650 ppm (parts per million) by 2050.
We are not asking the same commitments from developing countries. Developing countries, especially the economically advanced among them, do not need to deliver binding targets, but they should "translate" their domestic actions into an overall agreement.
Developed countries have to put on the table binding economy-wide targets for CO2 reduction.
We have two short months to go until Copenhagen - less than 60 days, and in fact there is just one more week of negotiation, in Barcelona in November.
We still have a long way to go to achieve success. The way ahead is hard, but we cannot be distracted by talk of Plan B, or we will end up with Plan F - for failure.
Indeed, there is no Plan B, as we have not Planet B.
(The article is adapted from his speech at the Global Editor's Forum. The views are his own.)
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
