Climate Change is a threat and an opportunity, for Britain and Brunei

The UK is about to establish a Green Investment Bank, to leverage faster flows of private capital into low carbon infrastructure and get us off the hook of dependence on oil and gas.

Climate security is inseparably connected to energy security, food security and water security. That is why William Hague, the British Foreign Secretary gave a major speech on climate change at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York on 27 September.  In his speech, he said that failure to respond to climate change is inimical to the values of the UN and to Britain, “undermining trust between nations, intensifying competition for resources and shrinking the political space available for co-operation.”

Without an effective response, our security will be threatened and our economies will weaken.  The poorest and most vulnerable will bear the brunt of the impacts of climate change.  As the Foreign Secretary set out, “we have a shared vision to meet the millennium development goals.  In a world without action on climate change that vision will remain a dream.  The effort of the last ten years will be wasted”.

Britain is responding.  The UK is about to establish a Green Investment Bank, to leverage faster flows of private capital into low carbon infrastructure and get us off the hook of dependence on oil and gas. We are also radically transforming our electricity network and pushing the EU to cut emissions by 30% by 2020. We believe it is not just right to do this, but it’s also in our interests – and those of all of our partners. The global low carbon economy is already estimated to be worth up to £3.2 trillion a year.  Britain’s share of that is £112 billion, with nearly one million British people employed in the low carbon sector.

But an effective response cannot be developed alone. We need others to act too.  That is why we are calling for a global climate deal under the UN; side by side with countries like Brunei, which have associated themselves with the Copenhagen Accord.  It is why we are calling on EU countries to modernise their infrastructure and address the low carbon challenge.  And it is why we are calling on all countries -- both developed and developing -- to take action.

It will be difficult to get global agreement on the action we all need to take.  But it is not too late to take those steps.  As the Foreign Secretary said, “if we do, we can still shape our world.  If we do not, the world will determine our destiny.”