Download One Climate, One World- Labour party response 2014

Labour party response to One Climate, One World campaign
Thank you for your email to Ed Miliband sharing your concerns about
climate change.
Climate change is one of the most serious and complex challenges we
face. We need concerted, immediate and sustained action to reduce
carbon emissions and to avert the potentially serious environmental
consequences of climate change.
Labour has always warned that climate change threatens national security
because of the consequences for destabilisation of entire regions of the
world, mass migration of millions of people and conflict over water or food
supplies.
As you know, Ed Miliband as Secretary of State for Energy and Climate
Change in the previous Labour government introduced the 2008 Climate
Change Act, which set a legally binding target to reduce the UK's
greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050, and a range of measures to
improve energy efficiency, increase renewable energy and build a low
carbon economy. We are very proud of the act and will continue to frame
our work on energy and climate change.
The current government is failing to take climate change seriously.
Disagreement and inconsistent messages from ministers, as well as policy
uncertainty on decarbonisation and support for renewables is undermining
the leadership that Labour set in the past. Investment in renewables has
collapsed and important measures such as a clear target to decarbonise
our electricity supply by 2030 have been opposed.
A future Labour government will put in place a clear plan to mitigate and
manage the impact of climate change. That will mean taking action on
prevention through the 2030 decarbonisation target and an ambitious EU
emissions reduction target, building our resilience to extreme weather
conditions caused by climate change, and making the most of the
opportunity presented by a growing green economy.
A UN climate agreement is a vital foundation for the proposed Sustainable
Development Goals, and the link between climate action and poverty
reduction needs to be recognised in both processes. The 2015 climate and
development conferences will be crucial to setting the future direction of
strategies for climate change. It marks the final year of the UN’s
Millennium Goals and a key point in evaluating our progress and clarifying
future goals.
A Labour government would play an active role in delivering ambitious
outcomes from these conferences. We should also ensure that
Department for International Development funding is resilient, and work
closely with developing countries to support innovation and sustain global
momentum in fighting climate change.
A Labour government will also build our resilience by ensuring homes,
businesses and infrastructure are able to withstand the effects of climate
change. We are looking, through our Zero-based Review, at how we can
prioritise upfront investment in prevention, to reduce costs in the longterm. This could include a higher priority for flood protection and for the
parts of the Environment Agency that lead and manage this work on the
ground.
We will seize the opportunities for Britain that are being created by the
global race to tackle climate change. We will encourage investment in low
carbon energy, support growth in the energy efficiency industry, and give
the Green Investment Bank new freedoms and borrowing powers to
create jobs and build a new high wage, high skill green economy. There is
a fast-growing, multi-trillion pound global market for low carbon and
environmental goods and services – Labour will secure a world-leading
position for British businesses in helping the world meet the low carbon
challenge and, in doing so, create prosperity and jobs for people in this
country.
Thank you once again for writing to Ed Miliband to share your views on
this important issue.