UK Climate Change Programme 2006 - JNCC - Defra

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International framework for action
harnessing the efforts of the many bodies
engaged in development.
12. The Government will therefore continue to show
leadership in 2006 and beyond in maintaining the
high international political profile of climate
change as countries consider the further action
needed. We will be working for speedy progress
in multilateral discussions in the UNFCCC and
also in associated fora such as the Commission
on Sustainable Development (CSD), which is
currently working on climate change and
associated topics 10 . The UNFCCC is the only
forum in which binding international agreements
on emissions reductions can be made, and
binding agreements will be needed to underpin
political and market confidence. But other
organisations, informal discussions and
partnerships will also have an essential
complementary role in exploring how countries
can work together, sharing experience and
building political will and confidence. We will
work with G8 partners, particularly the Russian
G8 Presidency in 2006 and the subsequent
German and Japanese Presidencies, to deliver on
the commitments in the G8 Action Plan and build
on the agreement reached at Gleneagles. The
Government believes that the Gleneagles
Dialogue will be able to make an important
contribution to accelerating international progress
in tackling climate change.
13. The Government also believes that a high priority
for driving action on the scale and with the
urgency needed to deliver a long term shift
towards a global low-carbon economy is for
governments to give an early signal about the
long term direction of policy that is sufficiently
clear to drive investment decisions. Without that
there will be insufficient confidence among
business and in the fledgling carbon market.
The Government therefore believes that the
political debate in 2006 should focus in particular
on building consensus on the scale of action
needed to stabilise the climate and avoid
dangerous climate change, the costs and benefits
of taking such action and the long term signals
that are needed to drive it.
14. A key element of the international debate will be
how countries can develop sound, effective and
timely responses to climate change whilst
maintaining the health of their economies and
their competitiveness. It will be important to
engage economic policymakers and institutions
in this. The Review of the Economics of Climate
Change, within the context of existing national
and international climate change policy, will help
the Government to understand more
comprehensively the nature of the economic
challenges and how they can be met, in the UK
and globally.
UK bilateral co-operation on climate
change
15. The UK works bilaterally in partnership with
a number of countries on both mitigation
and adaptation measures in order to build
understanding of the urgency of tackling climate
change and possible solutions. In 2004, the UK
and China agreed to establish a bilateral working
group on climate change. Defra has been
working with the Chinese Ministry of Science
and Technology since 2001 on the impacts on
agriculture in China. The first phase was a
research project on the impacts of climate change
on four key agricultural crops – cotton, rice,
wheat and maize. The second phase, launched
in September 2005, consists of national and
regional components taking forward the earlier
work and will explore the effect of climate
change on water availability and the impact of
this on projected crop yields. The UK also
supports activities to accelerate the deployment
of renewable energy and improve energy
efficiency in China, primarily through the
Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency
Partnership (REEEP).
10CSD’s second implementation cycle focuses on climate change, energy for sustainable development, industrial development, and air pollution/atmosphere.