評(píng)論
打印
聽(tīng)力MP3附帶文本如下：
Tony Blair’s Remarks of Breaking the Climate Deadlock
Hello, everyone,first of all, thank you very much indeed all of you for coming along for the launchof this report. Can I say a special word of welcome to former Japanese PrimeMinister, Prime Minister Abe. It’s a great pleasure to see you here, sir, andto also our friends and colleges from the media. What I am going to do is Iwill outline this report to you and then I’ll take some questions from themedia and then I now if we have a chance to do some informal discussion lateras well.
The problem ofclimate change is now, almost universally understood and acknowledged. This isin itself a major achievement. But now is the moment to get serious about thesolution. Such a solution has to be global. It must include America and China.It has to be radical. It must put the world on a path away from carbondependence to a new and green economy. It has to be realistic. It has to takeaccount of the completely legitimate right of people - especially the world'spoorest - to enjoy the benefits of economic growth and prosperity that shouldbe spread to all. //
There has been avast amount of work to get us to here. The United Nations’ process led brilliantlyand often heroically by Yvo de Boer has set out the international community'sroadmap to a deal; which will culminate in the negotiation in Copenhagen inDecember2009. The IPCC panel of experts led with such distinction by Dr.Pachauri has examined and laid out the scientific consensus. Here in Japan, wecan see how the political agenda has been shaped and changed, first by Prime MinisterAbe's Cool Earth policy and now under the leadership of Prime Minister Fukuda,who leads this year's G8.
Ours is adifferent type of report, is a report drawn up by experts but guided by a politician.Our work is split into two phases. Phase 1 is for this year’s G8. Phase 2 willbe for next year's. Phase 1 is an attempt to clarify and bring order to theagenda for the solution. Phase 2 will attempt to set out what the solutionmight be. Phase 1 is in part analytical and technical; in part it is about howto make sense of the political process. Essentially, it is about trying tounite the scientists and experts with the political leaders anddecision-makers. As such it is explicitly designed to be a practical waythrough; not yet another campaigning polemic to wake up the world to thechallenges of global warming. The world has woken up. What now it needs to knowis what to do.
The report warnsof the danger of a yawning chasm between, on the one hand the calls for radicalaction from scientists, environmental groups and people rightly alarmed at theeffect of greenhouse gas emissions on our planet; and on the other, the anxietyof decision makers in politics and business, who share the aims of the radicalaction but worry about whether that action is realistic. Long-term everyoneaccepts that the needs of economy and the needs of environment operate in partnership.Short term there is a clear tension. And we live in the short term.
The report triesto design a way to bridge this chasm. There is a blunt reality that we need to acknowledgeamongst all the talk of targets, goals and obligations. The climate demands,over time, a radical, transformative change in the nature of the world economy,moving from growth built on carbon dependence, to environmentally sustainabledevelopment.
But we need to beclear about the size of the task. The US emissions are still growing. So are thosein Japan. In Europe they are static. China and India are set, rightly, toindustrialise and move their vast hundreds of millions of poor people fromsubsistence agriculture to the modern economy. Now we are talking about aglobal 2050 target of at least a 50 percent cut in emissions. Let's be clear. Thisdate is decades away and decades beyond the political life of any government.
The key challengeis actually to describe a realistic pathway to that goal. And that implies shorter-termgoals. But these are immensely demanding, asking developed economies to movefrom growth in emissions to significant cuts within 10-15 years. Europe hasvery bold 2020 targets and it will take very bold action to achieve them. Therecent Warner-Lieberman Bill before the US Senate implied 5 percent cuts inemissions by 2020. That would be a big step forward but, according to somescientists, it falls short of the cuts necessary for world emissions to peak in2020. China has set a target of a 20 percent cut in energy intensity by 2010;and that is a huge step forward. But this is again immensely demanding, andeven if met, will not cut overall emissions, given China's need to grow. India,again wanting to act, also wants to grow.
The point I makeis the challenge is truly profound. One thing I’d learn to this report is thatthis challenge is as technically and scientifically complex, as politicallysensitive and as institutionally fraught as any the international community hashad to deal with since the post-war Bretton Woods economic settlement.
And, above all,and here is the point, it should be noted, our knowledge of this issue is constantlyevolving. Though we talk as if the science were certain - its overall purportmay be, the precise details are often open to substantial debate.
Therefore whatthis report proposes is this, it proposes an approach to the Copenhagen agreementat the end of 2009 that does not attempt a deal that tries to resolve allissues up to 2050 or even 2030 or 2020. But instead begins a process that willthen undergo necessary revision and adjustment as our knowledge improves andthe facts become clearer.
