Brown rallies troops ahead of Copenhagen
Gordon Brown says binding climate change deal at Copenhagen summit is still "achievable"
Friday, 04, Dec 2009 06:31
By Matthew Champion.
Gordon Brown has attempted to draw a line under recent controversy by insisting the world can still come together for a binding emissions deal at Copenhagen next week.
The United Nations summit has been overshadowed by the leaking of emails from a UK climate change centre that suggested manmade global warming had been exaggerated.
And last month, during a visit by Barack Obama to Asia, regional leaders admitted the chances of establishing a successor to the Kyoto Protocol in the Danish capital were receding.
But in remarks ahead of a Q&A with young people at the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) in London, Mr Brown said such a deal was still "achievable".
The prime minister insisted the world was halfway to meeting changes needed to limit average global warming to 2C.
"We are halfway to a climate deal for the world. A deal at Copenhagen which averts catastrophic climate change is our aim, and it is achievable," he said.
"To keep global warming to a maximum of 2C, global greenhouse gas emissions need to fall from their present level of about 47 billion tonnes to below 20 billion tonnes in 2050."
Mr Brown added: "Today the world is on a path to emissions of 54 billion tonnes by 2020. So we need to take out ten billion tonnes through this agreement.
"So far, unilateral action by countries around the world to reduce their emissions is already projected to take five billion tonnes out of the atmosphere. So we are halfway there. Now at Copenhagen we must achieve the other half."