With the will, we can save the Earth
Hilary Benn
Sunday December 30, 2007
The Observer
The world now understands that climate change is not just an environmental problem. It's also a security, economic, political and migration problem. What are we going to do when people begin fighting not about politics, but about water? What will we do when people start arriving on our shores fleeing not political persecution, but environmental catastrophe? And what will we do when the countries to which we sell goods can't buy them any more because they are having to deal with rising sea levels or crop failure?
All countries will feel the increasing effects of dangerous climate change and it is those least able to bear it who are already being hurt first and hardest. There are 6 billion of us now on this small and fragile planet. There will be 9 billion of us in less than 50 years' time. We are already living beyond our environmental means and we have only the one planet to draw on.
And whatever action we take now - and we must - some of what's happened cannot be undone because of the climate change that is already inevitable. That's why the Bali agreement on helping developing countries to adapt is so important.
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