Climate conference starts in Exeter

The UK's International Conference on Climate Change launched today with a call from the Environment Secretary for "radical changes" in the generation and use of energy worldwide.

Speaking at the 'Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change' conference, at the Met Office's Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research in Exeter, Margaret Beckett, said that an international approach to combat climate change was "vital, as no single country could solve the problem by acting alone".

Mrs Beckett, who delivered the keynote speech at the event, welcomed the Kyoto Protocol, which comes into force on February 16 and has the support of 132 countries. She said: "Kyoto is an essential first step and shows what can be done when the international community works together. But we need to move forward through low carbon technology, greater energy efficiency, emissions trading schemes and the clean development mechanism, which provides a novel way to slow growth in developing country emissions, while at the same time, providing resources and new technologies that will aid development."

The Enivronment Secretary pointed out that further temperature rises over the next few decades was now "virtually unavoidable" and said that "significant impacts" might occur as a result, but stressed that action was needed to reduce emissions to avert the worst effects of climate change. She urged the conference to send a clear message to leaders and decision-makers about the scale and urgency of the threat and the need to reduce emissions and begin the move to a lower carbon economy." She added: "This meeting provides a tremendous opportunity for scientists to influence the debate, both for our G8 Presidency and beyond the 2012 post Kyoto period, as well as helping the world to move to a sustainable future and to avoid the worst dangers of man-made climate change."

The 'Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change' conference runs from February 1 – 3. The aim of the conference is to advance scientific understanding of and encourage an international scientific debate on the long-term implications of climate change, the relevance of stabilisation goals and options to reach such goals and to encourage research on these issues.

The key issues related to the stabilisation of greenhouse gas concentration in the atmopshere will be discussed during the conference, including; the key impacts of different levels of climate change and the technological options for achieving stabilisation of greenhouse gases.

(KMcA/SP)