Brown warns of climate 'catastrophe'
Updated on 19 October 2009
The prime minister predicts that Britain faces a future of killer heatwaves, floods and droughts if efforts fail to secure a new climate change deal in Copenhagen. Tom Clarke reports.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown has delivered his bleakest message on the prospects of climate change yet as he urged talks between 17 leading nations in London to reduce greenhouse emissions. He said there is "no plan B" if agreement is not reached at December's UN-sponsored summit in Copenhagen.
With less than 50 days to go until the crunch meeting, serious fears remain that international wrangles over emission cuts targets will end in deadlock.
Brown, who has pledged to attend the summit in person in a bid to end the impasse, renewed calls to fellow world leaders to speed up efforts to iron out differences after describing the future as "catastrophic."
"If we do not reach a deal at this time, let us be in no doubt: once the damage from unchecked emissions growth is done, no retrospective global agreement, in some future period, can undo that choice," he told the Major Economies Forum.
"By then it will be irretrievably too late.
"So we should never allow ourselves to lose sight of the catastrophe we face if present warming trends continue."
By 2080 an extra 1.8 billion people - a quarter of the world's current population - could lack sufficient water, he warned, but insisted it is not just poor countries that are affected.
"The extraordinary summer heatwave of 2003 in Europe resulted in over 35,000 extra deaths.
"On current trends, such an event could become quite routine in Britain in just a few decades' time. And within the lifetime of our children and grandchildren the intense temperatures of 2003 could become the average temperature experienced throughout much of Europe," he will say.
"In Britain we face the prospect of more frequent droughts and a rising wave of floods."
He will acknowledge that "formidable political constraints and challenges" stand in the way of changing traditional economic, energy and social outlooks.
Agreement at Copenhagen "is possible", he will conclude.
"But we must frankly face the plain fact that our negotiators are not getting to agreement quickly enough. So I believe that leaders must engage directly to break the impasse.
"I urge my fellow leaders to work together to reach agreement amongst us, recognising both our common and our differentiated responsibilities - and the dire consequences of failure.
"We cannot afford to fail. If we act now, if we act together, if we act with vision and resolve, success at Copenhagen is still within our reach.
"But if we falter, the earth itself will be at risk. This is the moment. Now is the time. For the planet there is no plan B."
The Copenhagen summit is aimed at securing agreement for the existing international treaty, known as the Kyoto Protocol.
Developing countries want richer nations, which they point out are responsible for the vast majority of harmful emissions historically, to commit to tougher targets.
They also want pledges of more cash to help them become greener themselves and to adapt to meet the challenges posed to them by the changing climate.
At the same time, fast-emerging economies such as China and India, which are among the biggest polluters in the 21st century, are under pressure to set out concrete proposals to limit the damage caused by their own rapid development.
There will be no formal outcome from the MEF meeting, which concludes today.
But the meeting, attended by representatives of 17 major economies and several nations particularly at risk from the impacts of rising temperatures, aims to narrow the gaps between countries on a number of issues to help progress towards a new deal.
