One-Planet Security' speech by Rt hon David Miliband MP Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs at the WWF One Planet Living Summit

DEPARTMENT FOR ENVIRONMENT, FOOD AND RURAL AFFAIRS News Release (NA) issued by The Government News Network on 27 March 2007

One-Planet Security' speech by Rt hon David Miliband MP Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs at the WWF One Planet Living Summit

LONDON 27TH MARCH 2007

I am delighted to be here at this One Planet living summit. Since the foundation of the WWF in 1961, your organisation has become a truly a global network, covering not just the protection of endangered species but the whole range of environmental threats. The idea of 'One-Planet living' is increasingly moving from margins to the mainstream of political debate.

I want to use my speech today to make three points:

First, I want to highlight the scale and urgency of the challenge we face, not just in terms of climate change, but other scarce natural resources. Second, I want to argue that the goal championed by the WWF of One Planet Living provides an invaluable lodestar for economic and social policy in our country. It also has the virtue of being comprehensible. But we must achieve it not by cutting our consumption by two-thirds, but by dramatically increasing the productivity with which we use natural resources.

Third, the dividend of this country and others moving towards One-Planet Living is more than environmental, or even economic; One-Planet Living is our best hope of addressing the underlying causes of future conflict in the world, and is as significant for foreign policy as it is environment policy.

The challenge

As you know, when I became Environment Secretary, I was struck by the WWF's description of the challenge facing us: the idea that if every citizen in the world lived as we do in the UK, we would need three planets to support us rather than one.

That is why I have defined our mission as a department in terms of One-Planet Living, both in relation to climate change but also the protection of other natural resources from water and food to land and marine ecosystems. You will be very familiar with the science, so let me make just three points.

First, while the focus in media coverage and politics is understandably on climate change, carbon is not the only example of a society consuming resources at an unsustainable rate. As the Millenium Ecosystems Assessment highlighted, 15 out of 24 of our ecosystems services are being degraded or used unsustainably. Our fish stocks are dwindling as the total mass of commercially exploited marine species has been reduced by 90% in much of the world. Our landscape has changed irreversibly with more than half of the original area of many types of grasslands and forests converted into farmland. Water withdrawals from rivers and lakes for irrigation or for urban or industrial use have doubled between 1960 and 2000, with many parts of the world struggling to access water. There are approximately 100 documented extinctions of birds, mammals, and amphibians over the past 100 years, a rate of extinction far higher than historic levels. That is why I was very pleased the week before last at the G8 plus 5 meeting of environment ministers to support the Potsdam Declaration on biodiversity.

Second, climate change will exacerbate each of these trends. This is why I do not see the dual focus of Defra - on climate change and natural resource protection - as pulling in different directions. For example, faced with a rise in temperature above 2 degrees, we would see reductions in crop yields: the effects would be on people and nature. Ditto in respect of marine life. The two dimensions of One-Planet Living - tackling climate change and protecting natural resources - are intertwined.

Third, while many changes in our environment are gradual and predictable, the dangers are also of abrupt and non-linear change. There are thresholds beyond which rapid and irreversible change occurs, and the feedback effects lead to a vicious cycle.

So the science tells us that we are living well beyond our environmental means. The challenge is to move from three planet living to one-planet living.

That is why the government is proposing the UK become the first economy in the world with a legislative framework to reduce carbon dioxide by 60 per cent - in effect legislating to become a one-planet economy in relation to carbon. By demonstrating leadership we can show the developing world that industrialised countries are prepared to act and break the logjam of distrust where each country will only act if they think others will follow suit. By moving early, we can ensure our transition to a low carbon economy is gradual rather than abrupt and costly, and provide the long term clarity businesses require for investment.

This commitment on climate change is matched in other areas:

- a landmark Marine Bill White Paper setting out a new integrated planning framework for the sustainable development of our seas

- commitments to international biodiversity, including a £50 million fund, announced in last week's budget, to reduce unsustainable deforestation in the Congo Basin - the second largest tropical forest in the world.

- in waste, last week's budget announcement of a further increase in the landfill tax escalator is a major step towards reducing methane emissions by diverting waste from landfill to recycling.

Our challenge is to frame these policy initiatives in a way that aligns action by government, business and individuals.

Vision of One Planet living

There are two visions of a future where we consume just one planet's worth of resources.

One involves the UK cutting our consumption by a third, expecting other countries to adopt similarly dramatic cuts, and restricting growth from India, China and the developing world.

The other focuses on continuing to consume and develop, but transforming the productivity with which we use natural resources: developing ways of giving people access to light, warmth, mobility, food and water without damaging the environment.

I think it is neither practical nor, in the case of the developing world, morally justifiable to expect citizens to lower their aspirations and miss out on better living standards.

But nor is it necessary. The positive news is that it is possible to see a world where we produce far more for far less, particularly in relation to greenhouse gases.

The majority of greenhouse gases produced in the UK come from three main sources: electricity, heat and transport. In each area, it is possible to see how light, warmth, and mobility can be provided in a low-carbon way. In each we are adopting policies that will drive the transition.

Housing

In housing, we know it is possible to create homes that emit zero net carbon emissions. This can be done by minimising the amount of heating and electricity required by the homes, and producing renewable energy within or near the home that can be exported to neighbouring communities or onto the grid.

A third of the homes that will be standing in 2050 are yet to be built, so a radical approach to new homes can make a major contribution. DCLG will therefore shortly be publishing the detail of proposals to make all new homes 'Zero-Carbon' by 2016. The policy will be delivered by ensuring that Building Regulations escalate towards the zero-carbon standard, following the trajectory set by the voluntary Code for Sustainable Homes. Alongside investment in new homes, as the Chancellor recently set out, our ambition is to ensure that every existing home for which it is practically possible should become low carbon over the next decade.

Electricity and power

In power generation, it is possible to see a shift from gas and coal that emit high levels of carbon emissions to low-carbon sources. This will include renewables such as solar, wind and wave power, incentivised through the combination of the Renewables Obgliation and the European Union Emissions trading Scheme, with our aim of increasing the proportion of electricity from renewables four-fold by 2020. Nuclear power is also a low-carbon source, and in the context of climate change must continue to be so.

But at a time when China builds a new coal-fired power station every week, we have to look at ways of using fossil fuels, which are still in abundant supply, in a way that lowers carbon emissions. Carbon Capture and Storage does exactly that. It is a technology which reduces carbon emissions from a coal-fired power station by up to 90 per cent.

As set out in the budget, we will be holding a competition to develop the UK's first full-scale demonstration of carbon capture and storage, the result of which will be announced next year. And to help share expertise we are currently working with China on a Near Zero Emissions Coal project. The EU is also currently considering a proposal to ensure all new coal-fired power stations built from 2020 are fitted with carbon-capture and storage, and those built before then, are made 'capture ready'.

Transport

Finally, in transport, the most ambitious approach to a low-carbon society has emerged from Sweden. In December 2005, the then Prime Minister Goran Persson appointed a Commission on Oil Independence. The primary rationale for the Commission was to address climate change. For the avoidance of doubt, it was not about protectionism or about a fear that oil will 'run out'. The first milestone towards an oil-free economy, proposed by the 'Commission on Oil Independence', and agreed by the Government was to reduce petrol consumption by 40 to 50 per cent by 2020.

A post-oil economy is not an unrealistic prospect. Over a generation, it is possible to see the evolution of road transport initially towards much greater fuel efficiency, greater use of biofuels and hybrids, and ultimately fully-electric cars. The leading edge technologies already show startling performance in terms of speed and duration. The Lotus built Tesla has a topspeed of 130mph and the battery charge lasts for 250 miles. Over a twenty year period, it is possible to imagine the car industry providing the investment and innovation required to move to a post-oil economy, if governments, preferably across a major market such as the EU, can provide a clear long term signal about the regulatory landscape.

The EU has already proposed to replace the current voluntary agreements to reduce emissions from new cars, which expire in 2008-9, with a mandatory scheme. Under the proposal, new car CO2 emissions would be restricted to, on average, 130 grams per km by 2012, compared with the average of 167 grams today, reducing new car emissions by 20 per cent. Our view is that the objective beyond 2012 should be to reduce average new car emissions to 100 grams per kilometre. Beyond that, as set out in the budget, we are setting up a review to examine the vehicle and fuel technologies which over the next 25 years could help 'decarbonise' road transport.

Double dividend

One-planet living is both necessary and possible. The technologies exist or are on the horizon. The most difficult challenge is how we mobilise the political will to reach a critical mass at a European and international level. Environmental groups such as WWF have an international reach that can mobilise support among hundreds of thousands of members and can play a critical role. Within government, through the G8+5 and leading to the UNFCC summit in Bali, I believe 2007 could be the year when we begin to agree the building blocks of a post 2012 international framework to succeed the end of the first period of the Kyoto Protocol.

However, there is a wider lesson that I want to draw out. The fight against climate change has developed huge momentum in this country and elsewhere. But if this movement is to have stamina, and if it is to embrace the other scarce environmental resources under threat, we must move the debate out of the box marked 'environment'.

Al Gore calls this a 'planetary emergency'. It is. But one of the reasons why the world has been slow to wake up to the threat from climate change is that is has been bracketed as an environmental issue - a threat to nature rather than people. It is more than that. It is a potential humanitarian emergency - since the consequence of failure to mitigate and adapt to climate change will be suffering on a grand scale. It is a development issue, as the poorest nations will be affected the most even though they have done least to cause it. And as Sir Nicholas Stern's report showed last year, it is also a financial and economic issue - while the cost of arresting climate change is around 1 per cent of global GDP, the cost of dealing with the consequence is between 5 and 20 per cent of global GDP.

Perhaps an area which has received less attention is the impact of the environment on the conflict and security around the world. In the final part of my speech, I want to make the case that seriously addressing climate change and protecting environmental resources should be an integral part of our mission to create a more secure, peaceful world. As Margaret Beckett has argued, tackling climate change must be as critical to the Foreign Office and Defence Ministry as it is to Defra.

Historically, the environment has played a critical role in past conflicts. Jared Diamond's book, Collapse, charts the way environmental factors have played a critical part in the collapse of countries and civilisations from the Vikings of Greenland to Haiti. The familiar pattern he identifies is of population growth leading to intensified agricultural production that in turn results in an unsustainable use of natural resources, from deforestation and soil erosion to overfishing and water shortages. The food shortages, starvation and migration that result lead to conflict and societal collapse.

For example the Ogaden war between Ethiopia and Somalia in the 1970s was rooted in an environmental crisis. Deforestation and soil erosion led to poverty, famine and mass migration from the Ethiopian highlands towards Somalia. In Darfur today, some argue, though this is contested, that it is the first climate change conflict, with settled farmers pitted against nomadic herders in a scramble over access to water. The flow of the Jordan River has long been an aggravating factor in the Arab-Israeli conflict.

In future, the combination of rising population, economic growth and climate change will massively exacerbate the risk of environment-related conflict.

* If greenhouse gas emissions continue along a business as usual path, argricultural yields will change dramatically: some areas will become more fertile, while others will suffer from severe drought. According to the IPCC, up to 600 million people could face the risk of famine.

* Water scarcity will also be exacerbated. 97.5 per cent of the world's water is salt water. Of the remaining 2.5 per cent, two-thirds is unavailable for human use as it resides in glaciers, snow, ice or permafrost.

* The migration that could result from the effects of climate change - from rising sea levels, water scarcity and the loss of agricultural land - also represents a major risk. In Bangladesh, rising sea levels could see mass migration on a scale larger than even the partition of 1947.

These environmental problems may not cause conflict in themselves. More often they aggravate tensions that are already there, and act in conjunction with other sources of instability from weak governance, existing armed conflicts, and existing ethnic or religious tensions.

The implication I believe is clear. It is important to focus on the short term triggers of conflict, important to recognise the role of 'hard power' and military solutions to humanitarian crises, important to recognise the role of culture and religion in tearing societies apart. But we also need to focus on addressing the long term and underlying causes of conflict, on non-military security solutions, on the material and environmental factors as well as the ideological.

That is the significance of Margaret Becket's decision to make climate change a new strategic international priority for the UK, and the new DfID/Defra element of the Environmental Transformation Fund. As set out in the Budget, the fund, worth £800m over three years, will support development and poverty reduction through environmental protection and will help developing countries invest in clean energy, avoid deforestation, and adapt to climate change. The Foreign Secretary's proposed debate in the UN Security Council next month on climate and security is an opportunity to develop this theme further.

A serious focus on climate change would not just reduce the risk of conflict triggered by migration, water scarcity, and loss of agricultural land. It would have another spin-off benefit. Our oil dependence creates real dangers. The New York Times Columnist Thomas Friedman makes a striking assertion when he says 'we are financing both sides in the war on terrorism: the US army with our tax dollars, and Islamist charities, madrassas and terrorist organisations through our oil purchases'.

In the United States, a growing band of 'green hawks' have been making the case for energy independence in the United States, focusing mainly on the hidden costs of Middle East oil. They are right to do so: the cause of energy security can help the world develop the ambition, pace and institutions to move to embrace environmental sustainability.

The prize is potentially immense: a green dividend laying the foundation for a peace dividend.

Conclusion

The lesson I believe is clear: environmental interest, economic interest and security interest, can create a triple bottom line for the shift to a low carbon economy. What is more, the environmental imperative, in respect of climate change and natural resource protection, holds the key to important aspects of our economic and security future. As WWF have, to be fair, always said, one planet living is not just an environmental concept.

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