E3G

Climate change: a security issue like the Cold war

By Quentin de Molliens

The Reuters website carries an article looking at the 2007 Ny-Ålesund Symposium on global climate change and the changing Arctic, which has just taken place close to the polar circle in Spitsbergen, Svalbard, Norway.

This was an international event held from 20-22 August where politicians and scientists from 13 nations met to discuss climate change issues.

In attendance at the seminar was E3G Founding Director John Ashton in his role as Special Representative for Climate Change of the UK Foreign Office. John’s participation was reported by Alister Doyle of Reuters, and his story was widely repeated by others news media, including Canada.com, The Scotsman, The Washington Post, and Treehugger.com.

Reuters reported John as saying:

We’re not yet collectively grasping the scale of what we need to do”

He said global warming should be recast as a security issue, such as war or terrorism, to help mobilize support for tougher global action to cut emissions of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels.

“The Cold War was the last big problem the world faced on so many fronts—economic, political, industrial,” he said.”