Brown steps up climate change rhetoric

If we were in any doubt of the potential impact of climate change, Gordon Brown today spoke  of the possibility of an extra 1.8 billion people living and dying without enough water by 2080 when speaking at the Major Economies Forum in London.

Speaking 50 days ahead of the all important Copenhagen climate change summit, Brown said: "If the international community does nothing to assist the rainforest nations in peotecting the world's rainforests, the damage, not just to the climate but to biodiversity, to watershed and to the livelivehoods of people will be incalculable." He also said that within 25 years the glaciers in the Himalayas which provides water for three-quarters of a billion people could disappear entirely.

He also spoke of the great injuctice of climate change with those who have done the least to cause it being hit hardest.

Lord Stern's climate report showed that global emissions are at 50 gigatonnes, and to keep an average global temperature increase below 2 degree, this needs to reduce to 20 gigatonnes by 2050.

Brown did offer hope and said that technology, caps, finance and increased communication and reporting could be harnessed to meet the challenges. He cited a figure of $100bn a year in predictable public and private funding by 2020.

He concluded: "We cannot afford to fail. If we act now; if we act together; if we act with vision and resolve success at Copenhagen is still within our reach. But if we falter, the earth itself will be at risk. And for the planet there is no Plan B. In the words of a former President: if not us, who? If not now, when? If not together, how? So this is the moment. Now is the time. And we must be the people who act."