Summary: 23 June 2009, Brussels - Speech by Stavros Dimas, Member of the European Commission, responsible for Environment, "Act and Adapt: Towards a New Climate Change Deal" at Green Week 2009
Mr Chairman,
Minister Miko,
Special Envoy Mogae,
Distinguished colleagues,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Good afternoon and welcome to Green Week 2009.
This is without question the most important year we have faced in the war against climate change. We need an ambitious international agreement at the Copenhagen conference in December followed by determined and effective international action. It is the future of our planet that is at stake and time is running out.
Over the next three days, Green Week will be looking at how Europe and the world must confront what is the greatest challenge facing mankind. The European Commission is honoured that such a distinguished panel of guests has accepted our invitation to speak at this opening session. And I am delighted that this year we have over 4,000 registered participants - more than Green Week has ever seen before.
Between now and Friday, you will have the opportunity to share your knowledge and to benefit from the expertise of many expert speakers over the course of almost 40 different sessions.
Climate change is a cross-cutting issue that not only affects the natural environment we depend on but also has important impacts on our economies and social fabric. The wide range of topics that will be covered over the next three days reflects the multi-facetted nature of the climate challenge. We have structured the programme of Green Week on four thematic pillars.
The first focuses on the policies and measures we are putting in place in the EU.
The second pillar deals with the international dimension, looking both at key issues in the context of the Copenhagen negotiations and at climate change in specific regions.
The third covers living with climate change - in other words, the need to start adapting to it right now.
The fourth, and final, pillar will consider the longer term: looking beyond the current issues to develop realistic visions of a sustainable, low-carbon world in the year 2050.
In our discussions over the next three days, we must keep one important message in mind: continuing with business as usual means climate change will reach dangerous and perhaps devastating levels later this century. All the projections in the Fourth Assessment Report from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the IPCC, point in this direction. Under the worst-case scenario, climate change could reach dangerous levels as early as 2050 - within the lifetime of many of the people
here today.
The most recent scientific evidence suggests this worst-case scenario may be the most likely one. We are fortunate to have Professor Van Ypersele from the IPCC here this afternoon to share his analysis of where things stand.
But climate change is not just a problem for our children and grandchildren to worry about in 2050 or later. It is already happening, and its effects need to be addressed right now.
We are already seeing the impacts of climate change. Glaciers are shrinking worldwide and each year brings record losses of sea ice in the Arctic. Patterns of agriculture are shifting and droughts are a major contributor to security crises in areas such as Darfur. The range of tropical diseases is spreading and in a mirror of events in Greece in 2007 - a record heat wave and deadly bushfires ravaged southern Australia earlier this year.
What the world needs to do is summed up in the slogan of Green Week: act and adapt.
We have to act by stabilising and then cutting global emissions of greenhouse gases, in order to prevent climate change from reaching dangerous levels.
And at the same time we have to adapt to the climate change that is already taking place, so that we can minimise its impacts.
The need for adaptation has gained political recognition only relatively recently. At European level, the Commission started the debate with our Green Paper two years ago. This April, we followed up with a White Paper setting out plans for developing a comprehensive European Union strategy on adaptation by 2013. However, this remains an area where work is in progress, and your contributions to the debates on adaptation will be a valuable input.
When it comes to cutting emissions the debate is already well advanced. Science tells us what the goal must be: to avoid dangerous climate change, we have to keep average global warming to less than 2° Celsius above the pre-industrial temperature. That is just 1.2°C higher than today
To have a reasonable chance of staying below this danger threshold, science also tells us that global emissions will need to peak within the next 10 years and then be reduced to at least 50% below 1990 levels by 2050. Developed countries must take the lead in making these reductions. The science tells us that developed countries as a group will have to cut their emissions by between 25 and 40% by 2020 and by 80-95% by 2050. A significant contribution from developing countries, and in particular
from economically more advanced developing countries, is also essential.
What this means in practical terms is that we need to move fast towards a low-carbon world economy. There is quite simply no alternative if we are to prevent the dangerous climate change that will cause untold human suffering, undermine economic progress, increase poverty, and trigger catastrophic changes to the natural environment.
Constructing a low-carbon economy in Europe, and globally, is an enormous challenge. President Barroso has spoken of the need for a third industrial revolution. But we know it is both technically feasible and economically affordable. And it is a challenge that also brings immense opportunities.
The low-carbon economy will see the development of new industrial sectors. These include energy efficiency, renewable energy and carbon capture and storage. These new clean technologies will create new jobs and develop new sources of economic growth. Mr Fludder from GE is well placed to tell us more about these.
Compared to five years ago, there is much greater recognition of the need for urgent action to tackle climate change. There is also a recognition that a strategic effort to reduce emissions can be used as a catalyst to modernise our economies. Green growth is at the heart of many business models and it is at the top of many government agendas. When faced by the most severe economic and financial crisis in a generation many governments have seized the opportunity to accelerate investment in a
low-carbon future.
Two years ago, European Union leaders committed themselves to transforming Europe into a highly energy-efficient, low carbon economy. They did so because they recognise the multiple benefits, in terms of fighting climate change but also for improving our energy security and giving Europe a competitive advantage.
The climate and energy package adopted last year ensures that this pledge will become reality. It fixed in law a 20% reduction in our greenhouse gas emissions - compared to 1990 levels - by the year 2020. And to ensure that these targets are not just aspirations it also delivered the legal framework to turn this commitment into reality. By doing so Europe has set an example to the world. No other region has adopted such an ambitious target and the legally binding measures to achieve it.
What is more, the package has put in place the mechanisms for scaling up our emissions reduction from 20% to 30%. This additional effort would be done in the context of a global deal in which other countries also agree to do their fair share.
This brings me back to Copenhagen.
The only way to reach the worldwide emission reductions that are necessary is through an ambitious global agreement to which all major emitters, from both developed and developing countries, must contribute.
It is essential that the industrialised world as a whole take the lead by committing to deep emission cuts and providing financial and technical support to developing countries. Only in this way can we expect the developing world to take meaningful action to limit its rapid emissions growth.
On Friday the closing session of Green Week will look at the issues that need to be addressed on the road to Copenhagen. But it is already clear where the road from Copenhagen must lead.
Currently we are speeding towards ever higher global emissions that will push global warming out of control. Copenhagen must go down in history as the crossroads at which the world changed direction by agreeing targets and actions ambitious enough to avert dangerous climate change.
I wish you a productive and enjoyable Green Week.
Thank you.
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