Today the Prime Minister joined President Macron and other world leaders at One Planet Summit in Paris. The summit arose from recognition that we are way off-track in tackling climate change. But it also came from a more positive sense that the economics have shifted decisively in favour of a global low carbon transition in recent months.
At the Summit the Prime Minister said we no longer had to choose between our environment and our prosperity. Instead we can create a stable climate and a green global economy with cheaper clean energy, sustainable infrastructure, skilled jobs and clean air.
The UK has already reduced emissions by 40% while growing 70%, over the last 25 years. We have decarbonised faster than anyone in the G20, becoming the world’s biggest offshore wind producer. Our coal-fired generation went from 40% of our mix 5 years ago to 0% earlier this year.
But to go further, faster, we’ve put the clean economy at the heart of our new industrial strategy, and a Green Finance Taskforce will propose new incentives to green London as an international financial centre.
Today the Prime Minister also announced:
- Many new members of our UK-Canada ‘Powering Past Coal’ alliance
- A 2018 UK-hosted global Zero Electric Vehicle Summit
- Additional climate resilience finance for the most vulnerable countries
Climate change is the probably the most complex diplomatic challenge we have ever faced:
- Intergenerational – a ‘tragedy of the horizons’ with current generations damaging future generations
- Multidimensional – amplifying all other foreign, security and developmental risks
- Inequitable – caused primarily by industrial countries, impacting disproportionately on the most vulnerable
This is why the Prime Minister’s engagement today is significant, and why the Foreign Secretary has put climate “front and centre of our foreign policy” through active climate diplomacy globally, that sustains UK climate leadership, protects our and others’ national security, and supports UK and global economic opportunity.
Find out more about how the UK is leading action on climate change:
