Mr. Chairman, since the last World War, our world has faced many
challenges, none more vital than that of defending our liberty and
keeping the peace. But the threat to our world comes not only from tyrants…it can be more insidious though less visible. The danger
of global warming is as yet unseen, but real enough for us to make
changes and sacrifices, so that we do not live at the expense of future
generations.

Our ability to come together to stop or limit damage to the
world's environment will be perhaps the greatest test of how far we can
act as a world community. No-one should under-estimate the imagination
that will be required, nor the scientific effort, nor the unprecedented
co-operation we shall have to show. We shall need statesmanship of a
rare order. It's because we know that, that we are here today.

For two centuries, since the Age of the Enlightenment, we assumed
that whatever the advance of science, whatever the economic
development, whatever the increase in human numbers, the world would go
on much the same. That was progress. And that was what we wanted.

Now we know that this is no longer true.

We have become more and more aware of the growing imbalance
between our species and other species, between population and
resources, between humankind and the natural order of which we are
part.

In recent years, we have been playing with the conditions of
the life we know on the surface of our planet. We have cared too little
for our seas, our forests and our land. We have treated the air and the
oceans like a dustbin. We have come to realise that man's activities
and numbers threaten to upset the biological balance which we have
taken for granted and on which human life depends.

We must remember our duty to Nature before it is too late. That
duty is constant. It is never completed. It lives on as we breathe. It
endures as we eat and sleep, work and rest, as we are born and as we
pass away. The duty to Nature will remain long after our own endeavours
have brought peace to the Middle East. It will weigh on our shoulders
for as long as we wish to dwell on a living and thriving planet, and
hand it on to our children and theirs.[fo 1]

[cut]

I want to pay tribute to the important work which the United Nations
has done to advance our understanding of climate change, and in
particular the risks of global warming…The IPCC report is a remarkable achievement. It is almost as
difficult to get a large number of distinguished scientists to agree,
as it is to get agreement from a group of politicians. As a scientist
who became a politician, I am perhaps particularly qualified to make
that observation! I know both worlds.

[cut]

But the need for more research should not be an excuse for delaying
much needed action now. There is already a clear case for precautionary
action at an international level. The IPCC tells us that we can't
repair the effects of past behaviour on our atmosphere as quickly and
as easily as we might cleanse a stream or river. It will take, for
example, until the second half of the next century, until the old age
of my [ Michael Thatcher] grandson, to
repair the damage to the ozone layer above the Antarctic. And some of
the gases we are adding to the global heat trap will endure in the
Earth's atmosphere for just as long.

The IPCC tells us that, on present trends, the earth will warm
up faster than at any time since the last ice age. Weather patterns
could change so that what is now wet would become dry, and what is now
dry would become wet. Rising seas could threaten the livelihood of that
substantial part of the world's population which lives on or near
coasts. The character and behaviour of plants would change, some for
the better, some for worse. Some species of animals and plants would
migrate to different zones or disappear for ever. Forests would die or
move. And deserts would advance as green fields retreated.

Many of the precautionary actions that we need to take would be
sensible in any event. It is sensible to improve energy efficiency and
use energy prudently; it's sensible to develop alternative and
sustainable and sensible … it's sensible to improve energy efficiency
and to develop alternative and sustainable sources of supply; it's
sensible to replant the forests which we consume; it's sensible to
re-examine industrial processes; it's sensible to tackle the problem of
waste. I understand that the latest vogue is to call them ‘no regrets’
policies. Certainly we should have none in putting them into effect.

And our uncertainties about climate change are not all in one
direction. The IPCC report is very honest about the margins of error.
Climate change may be less than predicted. But equally it may occur
more quickly than the present computer models suggest. Should this
happen it would be doubly disastrous were we to shirk the challenge
now. I see the adoption of these policies as a sort of premium on
insurance against fire, flood or other disaster. It may be cheaper or
more cost-effective to take action now than to wait and find we have to
pay much more later.

[cut]

Targets on their own are not enough. They have to be achievable.
Promises are easy. Action is more difficult. For our part, we have
worked out a strategy which sets us on the road to achieving the
target. We propose ambitious programmes both to promote energy
efficiency and to encourage the use of cleaner fuels.

We now require, by law, that a substantial proportion of our
electricity comes from sources which emit little or no carbon dioxide,
and that includes a continuing important contribution from nuclear
energy.

Such measures as these—which increasing numbers of countries
are adopting—should be seen as part of the premium on that insurance
policy which I mentioned. They buy us protection against the hazards of
the future: but they also pay dividends even though the gloomier
predictions about global warming are not fulfilled—they pay dividends
such as less air pollution, lowered acid rain, and reduced energy costs.[fo 4]

Mr. Chairman, people may disagree about the effects of increased
man-made carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. But everyone agrees that we
should keep in healthy condition the forests and seas which absorb a
large part of it here on earth. We would be wise to do that for other
reasons too: for the beauty of the forests and the infinite variety of
species which inhabit them, and to preserve the food chain and the
balance of nature in the sea.

That's why we want to contribute to conserving the world's
forests, and to planting new ones. Trees help to reduce global warming.
We intend to plant more at home, and we have just announced our plans
to replant one of the ancient forests of England—destroyed in an
earlier phase of our history.

Margaret Thatcher, November 6, l990,

h/t: John Quiggin