Miliband condemns climate protests
Updated on 18 October 2009
After 56 arrests and claims they were attacked by police dogs, climate change protesters in Nottingham go home but are condemned by Environment Secretary Ed Miliband.
More than 50 climate change protesters have been arrested during a two-day demonstration at a coal-fired power station in Nottinghamshire.
Three police officers needed hospital treatment when a thousand demonstrators converged on Ratcliffe power station, where some were bitten by police dogs.
The protests took place as Environment Secretary Ed Miliband hosted a meeting of the 17 biggest greenhouse gas-emitting countries ahead of December's climate change summit in Copenhagen.
The Major Economies Forum is an attempt to get progress on the issues of providing finance to developing countries, and protecting forests - amid speculation that hopes of an overall deal may be faltering.
"The protesters at the power station are wrong to be taking any kind of unlawful activity,” Mr Miliband told Channel 4 News.
"I don't think it's the way in a democracy that we should be going at all. I think peaceful campaigning is fine and legitimate.
"But I think they're wrong also to be hopeless and defeatist about this, because actually I think there are a lot of reasons to be optimistic.
"When you think about the Copenhagen deadline, it has focused people's minds. So China has moved its position, India has moved its position, Japan has recently moved its position.
"There is a lot further to go, and there is a danger that we won't get a deal, but it's right that governments from around the world, as we're doing in London today and tomorrow, strain every sinew and throw everything at it to get a deal because a lot does depend on it."
Full transcript: Ed Miliband interview
Q: The protesters at the power station are basically right, aren't they?
A: I think the protesters at the power station are wrong to be taking any kind of unlawful activity, and I don't think it's the way in a democracy that we should be going at all. I think peaceful campaigning is fine and legitimate.
But I think they're wrong also to be hopeless and defeatist about this, because actually I think there are a lot of reasons to be optimistic. When you think about the Copenhagen deadline, it has focused people's minds. So China has moved its position, India has moved it's position, Japan has recently moved it's position.
There is a lot further to go, and there is a danger that we won't get a deal, but it's right that government from around the world, as we're doing in London today and tomorrow, strain every sinew and throw everything at it to get a deal because a lot does depend on it.
Q: But the protesters point out that you have called for a civil movement on climate change and there is a proud tradition of civil disobedience, whether it's the suffragettes or anything else that involved direct action. That's what they're doing.
A: Well, I certainly haven't been calling for direct action of the sort that they're doing. I've been very clear that we need peaceful campaigning, that that's the only kind of campaigning that I think is legitimate in a democracy. I'm very clear about that.
But I think that there is too much defeatism around to be honest, and I think too much defeatism including from some of the people that you've been speaking to. Because actually government's are making progress on these issues. Governments are showing a willingness to act.
Now, there is a lot further to go and we need much greater ambition, and that's what this meeting is about.
Q: The American's seem pretty pessimistic at the moment. I mean Todd Stern told us there is a real chance of no deal.
A: There is a chance of no deal, he's right about that, because there are huge issues to overcome. What are we trying to do here, what fundamentally is this about? This is about showing that we can see global emissions after Copenhagen fall not rise. They've been rising throughout our industrial history and we need a deal, unlike Kyoto, which includes the United States and all the developing countries to turn those global emissions round.
Now, I personally think it is possible, it is still possible, but undoubtedly it is difficult. It needs imagination and it needs leadership. And that's what we're trying to do. So the prime minister, for example, has put forward a proposal on financing to help developing countries make the low carbon transition, to go green if you like, to try and get over some of the obstacles that we face.
So, I think political leaders need to throw everything into this to try and get the deal. I still think it's possible.
Q: Don't you think the Americans have dropped the ball on this? I mean, Obama won't even say he's coming to Copenhagen.
A: I don't think I would say they've dropped the ball. Look, compared to where we were, again I think that's too defeatist. Look where we were a year ago before President Obama was elected. We had President Bush who said American emissions are going to carry on rising to 2025. President Obama is saying that at the very least he will cut emissions by about 15 per cent from their current levels. They've got a bill through their House. They need to get it through the Senate. There is a lot further to go for them.
Q: But that's nowhere near enough is it?
A: They need to do more. I've been urging them to do more, I think it is important that they do more. But again I think there's too much defeatism in your question.
Lord Stern, who has got a very distinguished record on these questions, says actually the world is planning to do a lot for 2020. It needs to go further and part of the search of the next 50 days is to see how together we can do more.
Every country faces compelling constrains in their own countries, whether it's India and its need to develop, the US and where their debate is. What we need to do is overcome these differences and not engage in finger-pointing or defeatism.
Q: Isn't the truth that if you ask people in developed countries what they want, they say as people in Kettering have told the UN in this country, in that little study, that yes we want a deal on climate change, we don't want the world to be flooded, but we don't want to pay for it?
A: Yes, people are worried about the costs of this at the moment. And what do we have to say to them? We have to say to them that there will be absolutely enormous costs if we don't act because what all the studies have shown is that the cost to the world by the middle of this century will be enormous in terms of droughts, floods, extreme weather events, climate refugees if we don't act.
So, I want to keep the cost down but the costs of acting are much less significant than the costs of not acting. And that's the case we've got to make to people and I know it's a case we've got to make more vigorously and we've got to convince people of, but that's, in a way, part of the job of politics is to persuade people of truths that sometimes might seem uncomfortable.
I think it's absolutely necessary for us to act, I think it's good for our economy as well, by the way, because of the potential there are in the green industries of the future, whether it's making wind turbines or in clean coal technology which we're committed to making happen here.
Q: But your argument has to change, doesn't it, for the times. I mean, the Stern argument that you say that if you don't spend money now it will cost you more in the long term was fine perhaps at a time when Britain's economy was booming and people's house prices were going up and you could persuade them to spend money on loft insulation. People are losing their jobs right now, they're terribly insecure. Telling them they are going to have to pay more in their heating bills to pay for climate change in the future doesn't work in the same way does it?
A: Well, look, the truth is that Britain is doing its bit. We're legally committed to cutting our emissions by one third by 2020. We're the only country to have that kind of legally binding system. So we're going to act anyway in my view. Because it is the right thing to do for our economy and for our environment.
Why is it the right thing to do for our economy? Because only if we're to make the low carbon transition early, will we get the benefits in terms of the jobs that can exist. So yes, jobs are top of people's mind at the moment, but actually we'll create more jobs if we act ourselves and if we get an agreement at Copenhagen.
Now we need to persuade the rest of the world of that and that's part of my job this weekend and in the coming days.
