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The Lord Bishop of Liverpool writes for ePolitix.com ahead of his oral question on the UN climate change conference in Cancun.
There were high expectations for the climate-change talks in Copenhagen last year and a great feeling of disappointment when the talks failed to deliver a legally binding agreement. We need to maintain the momentum of these negotiations. The talks at Cancun in Mexico at the end of this year are the next critical step if we are serious about slowing the changing climate.
We need to reduce our global hunger for carbon. The developed world can no longer continue with heavy carbon-reliant business as usual. We need to cooperate with the emerging economies of India, China and Brazil to develop green, sustainable economic growth.
Despite the economic situation faced by many developed nations we must find ways to be generous, to look beyond our own concerns and hardship to the needs of the whole earth.
The changing climate is affecting the poor of the world, although they have contributed least to the amount of carbon in our atmosphere. The countries that have contributed the most to a changing climate are those who are least affected by it, and yet have the most power to do something about it. Cancun brings rich and poor nations together. We must listen afresh to each other and learn from each other, as together we find ways to address the effects of climate change now, and to reduce the anticipated changes to our climate in the future.
The UK government has shown global leadership on climate change. The prime minister, David Cameron and his coalition government must continue this important international leadership. The UK government remains committed to climate finance and has a vital leadership role in the EU, at the G20 and at Cancun to encourage developed nations to move from rhetoric to action. Despite the commitment to emissions targets by some individual nation states in the EU, the EU is hesitant to commit to 30 per cent reductions on 1990 levels by 2020. And yet this is another important step towards a global response to a changing climate.
Our grandchildren will ask us what we did about climate change. Perhaps our answer will be that it was too difficult. I hope our answer will be that we found new ways of listening, new understandings of each other, new ways of working together, for the sake of the earth, for the sake of the poor and for the sake of future generations. This is a matter of climate justice.
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