One year to save the planet from climate change disaster, Ed Davey warns

Agreeing global deal to cut carbon emissions next year is only way to protect "way of life we take for granted", energy secretary says, ahead of UN climate change summit in Lima

A polar bear and her cubs on pack ice. Global warming, weather, climate
"We need a deal in Paris – there is no alternative that will protect our national security, our economy and the way of life we take for granted," Ed Davey, the energy and climate change secretary said. Credit: Photo: ALAMY

World leaders must agree a deal to tackle global warming within the next year or risk losing our way of life as we know it, Ed Davey, the energy secretary has warned ahead of major international negotiations in Lima.

About 9,000 politicians, diplomats and non-governmental organisation delegates will descend on the Peruvian capital over the next two weeks for the UN’s annual climate change talks, intended to thrash out key details to enable a global deal by an agreed deadline of next year’s summit in Paris.

Mr Davey told the Telegraph: “These are the last major annual talks before we hit our deadline in Paris next year. We need a deal in Paris – there is no alternative that will protect our national security, our economy and the way of life we take for granted.”

The talks follow the publication earlier this month of a major report from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which warned the evidence of man-made global warming was clear and that only radical and immediate action to cut carbon emissions could avert catastrophic warming of more than 2C above pre-industrial levels.

Extreme consequences of flooding, droughts and conflict were likely to ensue beyond that level, the report found.

Mr Davey said that “momentum is building” towards a deal following an emissions-reduction agreement among EU leaders in October and a deal between China and the US this month. “In Lima, I will be pressing for more countries to come forward and put fair, ambitious commitments on the table,” he said.

But there is widespread acknowledgement from experts and, privately, the UK Government, that any deal in Paris is unlikely to be radical enough to actually limit warming to 2C – despite international agreement that this should be the goal.

Ministers are instead seeking to ensure that there is a deal that is as ambitious and legally-binding as possible, and has scope to be ratcheted up in years to come.

Slashing emissions to within 2C warming limits would require a vast expansion of controversial renewable energy such as wind and solar farms and phasing out burning fossil fuels unless their emissions could be captured. Critics dismiss the goals as unrealistic and costly.

Bob Ward, policy director at the LSE’s Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change, warned that “one of the key areas that could derail the talks is discussion over finance”.

Developed countries pledged in 2009 to mobilise $100bn a year of finance by 2020 to help poor countries tackle and adapt to climate change. As part of that the UN established a ‘Green Climate Fund’, which so far has just under $10bn (£6.4bn) of donations to cover the next few years, including a £720m pledge from the UK which was criticised by some Tory MPs.

“The question is whether developing countries think there needs to be more at this stage,” Mr Ward said. “As far as developing countries are concerned their willingness to sign up [to emissions cuts] is very much dependent on rich countries doing a lot of cuts but also providing the finance.”

“If at the end of Lima there are big disagreements still, that’s a very big problem for Paris,” he said.

Some developing countries are pushing for any deal to include not just emissions reduction pledges but also cash commitments. Small island nations vulnerable to flooding are pushing for compensation for loss or damage caused by climate change.

Environmental group WWF described the Lima talks as “a litmus test for the Paris deal”.

Richard Black, director of the Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit, said the summit was “like the overture to an opera”. “If it’s good, you approach the main event with anticipation; if it’s terrible, you might not stick around.

“If each of the important ministers leaves Lima feeling confident that all the others are committed to making a new deal in Paris that will enable the 2C target to be met, then the prospects of making that deal will be significantly higher.”