Kyoto II and a low carbon future - there is no Plan B

Executive Director of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Christiana Figueres, addressed a standing-room only lunchtime gathering at the Lowy Institute for International Policy on Wednesday 24 October 2012.

She reviewed progress with the establishing a low-carbon future emphasising that every nation and every sector of society holds part of the solution to solving a global problem and a top-down level approach on its own will not work. The international climate change negotiations are the intergovernmental face of this global trend towards a low-carbon future with the next step in the international response to climate change, being in Doha, this year.

She made three key points in her speech starting with a negative reality but balanced with two positive trends. First the negative reality is the progress has been slow and the world is well behind the targets needed to manage climate change and greenhouse gas emissions.

The positive points are that a large number of countries are implementing carbon reduction and emission trading schemes or equivalent. Australia is not alone in developing a response and the Clean Energy Future policy of the Australian Government is in line with policies being taken overseas by many countries including many of Australia's trading partners - China, South Korea and Singapore.

 

She observed that she is often asked what she has for “Plan B” if the negotiations fail. Her response: “There is no Plan B for there is no Planet B. There’s no alternative for we only have one planet and failure is not an option”.