SPEAKER Dr. Nick Westcott

DATE 16/10/2009

ADDRESS BY HE DR NICHOLAS WESTCOTT
BRITISH HIGH COMMISSIONER

We are here to launch the results of the Africa Talks Climate research in Ghana.  

I am grateful to the British Council and the BBC World Service Trust who have supported this work.  I am delighted that the Minister of Environment is also present to signify the importance the Government of Ghana attaches to the whole issue of climate change.  

The views you are about to hear, collected through this research, show that Ghanaians have a voice on climate change.  People are aware climate is changing.  As one man put it:

“It looks as if God has changed his calendar.”
A woman added that:
“it is because we have started cutting down trees everywhere.”

This is a voice that must be heard, both here and at the Copenhagen meeting on climate change in December – a meeting that is vital for the world’s future.

I want very briefly to cover two issues:

(1) why climate change is a top priority for the British Government and why a deal in Copenhagen is essential; and
(2) how we intend to support the developing world in responding to climate change.  

That man is having an impact on the climate of this world is not only an inconvenient truth, as Al Gore has expressed it, but an incontrovertible one.  The work undertaken by Nicholas Stern demonstrated that the economic cost of action on climate change is small compared to the costs of inaction.  

The other incontrovertible fact is that the impact of climate change will be uneven.  Vulnerable countries are amongst those that will suffer most, and suffer first.  In fact, it is already affecting Ghana’s climate, and the news today reports that the terrible drought in East Africa is now threatening Nigeria.  

What are we to do about this?

Our starting point is that the rise in global temperatures must be kept to below 2ºC.  Our best estimate is that requires cutting emissions by half from their 1990 levels by 2050.  It requires total emissions to peak in 2020 and fall from then on.

This means big reductions in the UK's emissions.  We're committed to an 80% cut by 2050.  With the Climate Change Act, we became the first country in the world to have legally-binding framework for cutting emissions and adapting to climate change.

But this is a global problem that requires the participation of all countries to tackle it.   And to achieve that, there needs to be a fair deal between developing countries like Ghana and developed countries like the UK.

Climate change is complex, but I want to be simple and clear on one point: we recognise that it was the UK and other developed countries that have caused this problem.  They must bear the biggest burden of adjustment.  But it is poor developing countries that are the most vulnerable and will be hit first and hardest, even though they have done the least to cause climate change.  

This why Prime Minister Gordon Brown has put fairness to developing countries at the heart of the UK's overall strategy.  

What does the Prime Minister mean by this?

(1) It means firstly that developing countries should be able to increase their emissions as their economies grow.  Developed countries therefore need to take an 80% cut by 2050.

(2) It means a huge investment in helping developing countries adapt to the effects of climate change and support them in making low-carbon choices as their economies develop.  The Prime Minister has proposed that this requires a sum of around $100bn per year by 2020, to be provided by public and private sources to developing countries.  

(3) Fairness also means that this climate finance should the additional  to our current aid programmes and support for the Millennium Development Goals.  So anything extra would be on top of the development assistance, currently£90m per year, that Ghana receives from the UK.

(4) And it means developing countries having an equal voice in the mechanism for distributing these funds. The current international institutional arrangements are complicated, slow and outdated. Around the world, we must move from a project focus to one that helps developing countries transform their economies and societies as a whole.

There is aspect of fairness – that everyone, every country has a part to play in finding the solution, to mitigate the impact.  The developed world cannot tackle this alone.  On current trends, even if they reduce their emissions to zero, temperatures will still rise more than 2C. The largest developed countries, whose economies are expanding rapidly, will need to contribute.  This is what's meant by common but differentiated responsibilities – the contribution of each must be based on size of economy, ability to pay and level of emissions.

The fact is, we are all sinners.  Salvation is in our own hands – by works as well as by grace.  And money alone cannot solve this problem.  Action is needed, everywhere.

This is the essence of what the UK wants from the Copenhagen summit.  A fair deal between developed and developing countries.  And commitments in place that will keep the global temperature rise to below 2C.

Making good on that is a great challenge.  But it is also an opportunity for the countries of the world to come together and show their common resolve in averting a global crisis.  

It's an opportunity too for Ghana.  Earlier this year I sat with President Mills and Prime Minister Gordon Brown when they met in Downing Street.  The President described Ghana's already-changing climate.  

This Government has made significant progress on Ghana's approach to climate change.  The establishment of a National Climate Change Council was key to co-ordinating work on this across government.  Climate is increasingly recognised as an issue at the heart of Ghana's own development, as we will hear.  And Ghana is a vulnerable country, one that most needs a deal.  It is therefore playing a full part in the international negotiations to achieve that.  

Ghana and its people have a voice.  Let us hear it.

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