Copenhagen is our last chance, warns PM

The prime minister told representative of 17 countries at the Major Economies Forum in London today that a delay to reaching a global deal on climate change could lead to a “catastrophe” for the planet and the UN Summit in Copenhagen must be the moment when nations reach a historic agreement.

He told the forum that countries must not wait until a future date to agree a successor to the Kyoto Agreement on climate change and that he believed a deal could be reached in Copenhagen. However, he warned that countries were not making progress quickly enough to reach agreement.

“If we do not reach a deal at this time, let us be in no doubt: once the damage from unchecked emissions growth is done, no retrospective global agreement, in some future period, can undo that choice. By then it will be irretrievably too late,” he said.

Brown said countries could not continue to operate on a “business as usual” basis and the route to a low carbon global economy will require a high level of international cooperation.

The Major Economies Forum was established earlier this year to provide a more informal meeting to discuss key elements of the agreement that will be negotiated at Copenhagen.