Gordon Brown: A few days with the power to shape the future for everyone

Published on Tuesday 15 December 2009 21:06

I KNOW that for many people the Copenhagen conference seems like a grand talking shop with abstract arguments about issues of little relevance to their daily lives.

• Electric cars like this Indian G-Wiz will reduce dependence on oil

But climate change is affecting every individual, every family, every community and every business. The decisions we take in the next few days have the potential to be the most momentous and profound for the world in more than half a century.

Environmental protection is the great moral crusade for our times – just as the abolition of slavery and the destruction of apartheid were in the past – not only because it is our duty to protect the planet for our children and grandchildren, but because climate change, caused largely by the richest nations, hits the poorest and most vulnerable hardest.

For decades now, the solution has apparently been beyond our grasp. Yet history is made by those brave nations and individuals determined to defy the odds and although we are only halfway to getting a deal, I remain optimistic.

I know that we can do what no conference of 192 countries has ever achieved on this scale before – to come together to advance our shared goals.

The will and determination is there to face down the cynics who dispute the overwhelming scientific evidence and the defeatists – unfortunately some of them in the green movement itself – who say agreement is impossible.

And with a deal in place I believe Britain can look forward with optimism to a decade of new growth, new jobs, new industries and new opportunities.

Some argue that, amid demanding economic conditions, our resolve to meet environmental commitments should weaken – that we should accept an age of austerity. The opposite is true.

If we do not act to tackle climate change, the costs to our standard of living will be huge – a reduction in our national income of up to 20 per cent, an economic catastrophe equivalent in this century to the two world wars and the Great Depression in the last.

So Britain must be at the forefront of the necessary transition to low-carbon societies.

We already lead the world in many environmental technologies and by harnessing the expertise of our engineers and scientists – and the ambition of our entrepreneurs – we can make the UK a global hub for low carbon industry and research.

I know that there are already 73,000 green jobs in Scotland in sectors like alternative fuels and renewable power, bringing in 8.5 billion in sales to the Scottish economy.

As part of reducing our need for foreign oil we also have a new, more active industrial policy investing towards a high-speed rail network, electrification of some rail lines and the development of electric cars.

Within a decade, 1.2 million people in the UK will be employed in the green manufacturing sector as a result of the investment decisions we are taking.

Factories producing energy-saving products, construction companies erecting renewable energy systems, scientists working to develop new nuclear power, mechanics maintaining hybrid engines and people installing insulation in homes: this is Scotland's workforce of the future.

For 200 years our prosperity has been rooted in burning enormous quantities of fossil fuels and cutting down trees. Now we must radically reverse our behaviour and base economic progress not on putting carbon into the atmosphere – but on taking it out.

So as we meet our international obligations, we must seize the opportunity for a comprehensive transition to a greener, cleaner future for Scotland and for Britain – one which is fairer, more responsible and more prosperous for all.

• Gordon Brown is the Prime Minister.