E3G

Climate change and carbon capture: John Ashton on Lateline

By Quentin de Molliens

The Australian debate about how to respond to the challenge of climate change has stepped up a gear in recent months.

E3G Founding Director John Ashton was recently there, meeting with policy makers in his role as a Special Representative for climate change of the UK Foreign Office.

While in Australia, John was also interviewed on ABC’s Lateline show, with discussion concentrating mainly on the imperative of deploying carbon capture and storage technology. Subjects also touched upon include the limited potential role of nuclear power, and the economic risks of inaction.

Lateline image video

 
A transcript of the interview follows below while the video can be viewed online by using the links on the right-hand side of the lateline webpage.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

TONY JONES: Well, as the debate was heating up in Parliament, behind the scenes a quiet British diplomat was meeting some of the key players on both sides of politics. John Ashton is the Blair Government’s special representative for climate change and he is here to help build an international consensus for a new global treaty to deal with carbon emissions. I spoke to him at Parliament House earlier this evening, in a brief interlude between those meetings.

John Ashton, thanks for joining us.

JOHN ASHTON, UK SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE FOR CLIMATE CHANGE: It’s a pleasure.

TONY JONES: Now, let’s start with a quote of yours, if we can. “Global warming is potentially the most serious threat there has ever been to security and prosperity.” Outline, if you will, the scale of the threat as your Government sees it?

JOHN ASHTON: Well, plenty of people are now joining that debate and, for example, the chief economist of our Government, Nick Stern, did a widely reported year long review of the economics of climate change and came up with one of the most eloquent summations there has been of the scale of this issue. He compared it he compared the damage that would result from unmitigated climate change to a combination of the first and second world war and the Great Depression in the last century, market failure, on a scale of that kind. The other point I would make is I wouldn’t encourage anybody to think of that only as a long term threat, somewhere over the distant horizon. We are now already seeing some of the, if you like, leading edge consequences.