7 June 2007
The Prime Minister welcomed an agreement at the G8 summit on how to tackle climate change and global warming.
- PM hails climate change agreement
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- Q & A in Heiligendamm
- Doorstep with President Bush
- PM’s statement in Heiligendamm
Parts of this transcript may have been edited
Read the transcript
Question:
Prime Minister, where are we now on climate change? Have you reached agreement?
Prime Minister:
There is now agreement and I would like to pay tribute to Chancellor Merkel and her Chairmanship of the G8, which has been superb. I would also like to praise the very constructive and important contribution that President Sarkozy has made, of course the speech last week of President Bush was important in setting the right framework for this.
The important thing is that we now have an agreement: one, that we need a new worldwide agreement on climate change; two, that at the heart of that should be a substantial reduction in greenhouse gas emissions; three, on the process that will work out what that cut in emissions should be. There will be serious consideration given specifically to the goal of halving emissions by 2050. This is an agreement in which we want all the major countries to be involved, including America, China, India and others - in other words the developed and the developing world.
So the possibility is here therefore, for the first time, of getting a global deal on climate change, with a substantial cut in emissions and everyone in the deal, which is the only way that we are going to get the radical action on the climate that we need. I think this is a major, major step forward.
Now you can track this back through the G8 Plus 5 dialogue after Gleneagles, the changes that have happened subsequent to that. There is obviously now the recognition that we do need a global deal with everyone in it, and of course there will still be a lot of things to work out. We have got an agreement to make this agreement, but there is then going to be a lot of technical details to work out about how you get the right market mechanisms to incentivise business and industry, how you link up the different schemes around the world, how you get the right transfer of technology, how the developing world has common but differentiated obligations. There are all these things to work out, but for the first time those sensible core principles are there, and are agreed, and that is a huge step forward in tackling this issue.
Question:
Were you disappointed yourself that there is no specific target set, as we understand it in the language of the communiqué, and no proper definition? There is just reference to a 50% cut but no substantive definition of what you mean by ’substantial cuts’. People might say there is a lot of wriggle room there for countries that don’t really want to play their full part.
Prime Minister:
The important thing is this, there isn’t going to be an agreement until there is an agreement that has got America and China in it. However, there is now a process to lead to that agreement. At its heart is the commitment to a substantial cut. What does substantial mean? - serious consideration is then given to achieving the halving of emissions by 2050. So what you have got is a sense that a substantial cut in emissions is of the order of the halving of emissions, the 50% cut, and I think that is very important. So in a sense you know you can’t, at this summit, conclude the agreement. That is not going to happen until you get everybody around the table, but you have got the principles of the agreement set out and agreed, and agreed by everybody. That is something that has not happened before. So you are absolutely right, there are still a lot of things that have to be done, but I think the whole tone of this would have been unimaginable even a year ago actually.
Question:
Would the whole target have been unimaginable a month ago?
Prime Minister:
Well it is a good point. I think there has suddenly been a great push forward on this - the fact that Germany put this right at the centre of this G8 agenda, the new French President is absolutely committed to this agenda, the President of the United States making the speech that he has made, and the fact that we have been able to have in these last couple of years since the Gleneagles G8 a dialogue on the climate issue which has involved, for the first time really, the main developed countries and China and India. The difficulty in this area has always been that unless you can get an agreement in which America - the key developed nation; and China - the key developing nation, along obviously with India; unless you can get an agreement with all these countries in it then the rest of us can come to a deal but it is not going to mean the reductions in emissions that we want. And so I have got no doubt that people will, you know they will say how do you take this forward? How do you make sure, and all the rest of it? All those questions are perfectly legitimate, but I am both surprised and very pleased at how far we have come forward in this last couple of years since the Gleneagles Summit.
Question:
And just finally Prime Minister, are you now happy that this is one of those boxes almost, I am not trying to trivialise it, but one issue that you can tick off now as you leave office? You think climate change is in a good shape, the international position on this issue is one that you are happy with and you feel you have done a good job on?
Prime Minister:
What I feel is this situation is now transformed from 2 years ago. 2 years ago for the first time we really put it on the international agenda. Now we have an agreement that there will be a climate change deal, it will involve everyone, including America and China, and it will mean a substantial cut in greenhouse gas emissions. We are moving from a starting position of considering the halving of emissions by 2050, which is a huge thing. And I think if you go back a few years ago that would have seemed an impossible aspiration, but there is now an immense amount of detailed technical and political work to do.
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