Foreign Office Minister Opens Climate Change Conference
Foreign Office Minister Alistair Burt welcomes participants to a conference which launches a 3-year initiative aimed at developing legislation to tackle climate change.
Speaking at the opening session of an FCO-funded conference in London organised by GLOBE International, an organisation which supports legislators and parliaments in tackling major global environmental challenges, Foreign Office Minister for the Middle East and North Africa Mr Burt said:
We are clear that we need to respond to climate change with a global, comprehensive and legally-binding deal on emissions reductions. Getting there will require effort, consensus and compromise.
Legislators can contribute to this process by building a constructive political climate for the discussion of climate change and enacting legislation which will act as a framework for domestic and global action for years to come.
Enacting effective national climate legislation is an important step towards getting a new climate deal in 2015. The UK – with its Climate Change Act and the Green Deal which makes it easier for households to make energy-saving improvements – is a world leader in the field of climate legislation. The initiative which is being launched this week will support legislators across the world to advance climate change legislation within their own parliaments.
The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change and Secretary of State for International Development will also be speaking at the two-day event.