UK GOVERNMENT SETS OUT MANIFESTO FOR GLOBAL CLIMATE DEAL
PRIME MINISTER PROPOSES $100 BN FINANCE BREAKTHROUGH

"This is a make or break time for our climate and our future", UK Climate and Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said last week as the Government for the first time ever set out its detailed position ahead of global climate talks.

And making a keynote speech aimed at unblocking the most contentious area of the talks, Prime Minister Gordon Brown broke new ground among world leaders in setting out how the world should pay for avoiding dangerous climate changeand adapting to its impacts.

With less than six months left before crucial climate negotiations take place in the Danish capital Copenhagen, the UK Government last week set out for the first time why an international climate change agreement is vital for the world and what a deal must contain. The UK argues the global deal on climate change must be:

• Ambitious - limit climate change to 2 degrees, by making sure global greenhouse gas emissions peak and start to reduce by 2020, and keep on shrinking to reach at most half of their 1990 levels by 2050.
• Effective - keep all countries to their word with strong monitoring, reporting and verification; and let money flow to where it will make most difference by developing carbon markets
• Fair - support the poorest countries to cut their emissions and adapt to climate change. In his speech, the Prime Minister proposed a way forward for developed and developing countries to agree new mechanisms to pay for tackling climate change. He urged countries to work together on a global figure of around $100 billion per year by 2020 to help developing countries reduce their emissions, tackle deforestation and adapt to the climate change already being experienced. He committed the UK to providing new finance additional to existing Official Development Assistance commitments. 

Prime Minister Gordon Brown told ambassadors, green groups and business organisations gathered in London: 
"The UK is determined to secure an international agreement at Copenhagen that puts the world on a path to avoiding dangerous climate change. All countries have to take action, but to help developing countries move to low-carbon and climate-resilient growth we will need a new system of financial support for greener technology, deforestation and adaptation."

Publishing 'The Road to Copenhagen', a manifesto for a global climate deal, Ed Miliband said: 
"This is make or break time for our climate and our future. With less than six months to go before crunch negotiations in Copenhagen, it's clear that there is no plan B for the planet".

Notes for Editors

• 'The Road to Copenhagen' executive summary is attached (.doc, 55K).
• More details on www.actoncopenhagen.gov.uk  - the UK Government official website on climate change negotiations.
• Speech of Prime Minister Gordon Brown is available at  http://www.number10.gov.uk/Page19813 .

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