The United Kingdom and China have pledged to “redouble” their efforts to combat climate change, describing it as an “urgent call to action.”
Ironically this strongly worded pledge at the end of bilateral talks comes just a week after Australia’s conservative Liberal-National Prime Minister Tony Abbott called for Britain to join him in an alliance rejecting climate change.
The UK and China pledged to cooperate on the development of low carbon policies, technologies, and financing mechanisms while pushing for “a global framework for ambitious climate change action”.
The joint statement followed talks in London between the Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron and China’s Premier Li Keqiang.
The two countries said they recognised climate change as “one of the greatest global challenges we face”.
At the same time they argued that there was a “clear imperative” for the two countries to work together on tackling the problem.
British media reports say they cited the threats of extreme weather, air pollution, and sea level rise.
The joint statement promised to intensify practical collaborations between the UK and China.
They already share joint initiatives on topics ranging from the New Climate Economy project, a major new international study on the economics of climate change, to developing offshore wind, nuclear power, carbon capture and storage, low energy buildings, and green finance initiatives.
“The IPCC’s report makes clear that unless we act now the impacts of climate change will worsen in coming decades,” the declaration stated.
“Both sides recognise that climate change and air pollution share many of the same root causes, as well as many of the same solutions.
“This constitutes an urgent call to action.”
The statement also sets out a commitment for the two countries to “redouble” efforts to build a global consensus on the adoption of a carbon cutting protocol at the Paris climate summit at the end of 2015.
It pinpoints the Leaders’ Summit that is scheduled to be hosted by the UN’s Ban Ki-Moon in September as a “key milestone” in adding momentum to the long-running UN negotiations.
As his rejection of the climate change issue leaves him increasingly isolated Mr Abbott has already said he will be “too busy” to attend the UN summit in September.
He has coupled that with an insistence that climate change should not be an agenda item for the G20 meeting that Australia will host in November, despite pressure from United States President Barack Obama and the European Union.
“The UK and China both recognise the clear imperative to work together towards a global framework for ambitious climate change action, since this will support efforts to bring about low carbon transitions in our own countries,” the statement issued by the UK and China reads.
“In particular our two countries recognise that the Paris Conference of Parties to the UNFCCC in 2015 represents a pivotal moment in this global effort.
“We must redouble our efforts to build the global consensus necessary to adopt in Paris a protocol, another legal instrument or an agreed outcome with legal force under the Convention applicable to all Parties.”
The statement follows the latest two-week round of international climate talks in Bonn, which were praised for making some incremental progress towards establishing the conditions for a global emissions reduction deal at Paris.
