MIDEASTENVIRONET - The Middle East Environmental Network

Wherever I go in the world, I am struck by the fact that the majority of
ordinary people want the same things out of life: to be able to live in
safety, to feel in control of their own lives, and to be able to build a better
future for their families and children. Climate change endangers every one of those
aspirations.

At the end of last week, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
published the first instalment of its fourth and latest report. It deals with the
basic science of climate change. As many had feared, it confirms that the threat
is even more serious and even more urgent than we had previously thought.
Children being born today may see, if we don't take concerted and immediate action,
global temperatures rise by 3-5 degrees celsius in their lifetimes. That
might not sound a lot, but when average temperatures were just 5 degrees less than
they are now the world was in the grip of the last global ice age. So the
effects of that sort of climate change to the world we live in would be
catastrophic. So much of our daily lives is based upon the predictability
and continuity of our climate. Take those two things away and you threaten every
aspect of modern society.

It will affect our ability to meet basic needs like food, water and health.
Studies have suggested that temperature rises of just 2-3 degrees will see
crop yields in Africa, the Middle East and South Asia fall by as much as 30 to 40
per cent. As my Special Representative on Climate Change in Africa recently
found out when he visited the region, that is already happening, with some African
countries facing increased risks of famine. Meanwhile, one billion people in
South Asia are likely to struggle to get water for themselves and for their
crops as the Himalayan glaciers melt and monsoon patterns shift. And in
several parts of the world we have started to see mosquitoes move into new areas -
including densely populated cities - bringing with them diseases like malaria.

An unstable climate can also lead to a more unstable world, stoking tensions
and feeding conflicts. The conflict in Darfur had many roots, but among them was
a shift in rainfall that exacerbated competition for resources between the
region's nomadic herders and settled pastoralists. As deserts grow and
fertile land shrinks, we can expect to see more disputes within and across borders.

In the Middle East five per cent of the world's population already has to
share only one per cent of the world's water. Climate change will mean there will
be even less water to go round. Current climate models suggest that -
globally - by the end of the century extreme drought could affect nearly one third of
the world's land mass, ten times more than today. Saudi Arabia, Iran and Iraq
will see some of the biggest reductions in rainfall. Disagreements over water
access issues along the Jordan basin have on several occasions been a major driver
of tension between Israel and its Arab neighbors, notably in the years leading
up to the 1967 war. The water in the Jordan basin has already been heavily
overused and climate change could worsen the situation.

Meanwhile, Egypt could suffer a double blow, with drastic loss of Nile flow
from the South and rising sea-levels in the North combining to destroy its
agricultural heartland across the Nile Delta. One study suggests that a
sea-level of just 50 centimeters - well within current estimates - would
displace two million people from the delta.

So no one should think about climate change as a purely "environmental"
issue - it is as much about poverty, conflict, disease and migration as it is about
the environment. But if the scale of the problem is clear, is there anything we
can actually do about it? The answer is yes if we act now, act decisively and -
perhaps most important of all - act together to cut carbon emissions.
Everyone stands to lose out from global warming. This is not a problem any country
can solve on its own. There is a global imperative for us to co-operate.

Some of the countries that will be hit hardest will be the poorest in the
world. But it is the developed economies which have been responsible for the
majority of greenhouse gas emissions. So they - we - must take the lead. We in the
U.K. are so concerned by what climate change will mean for all of us that we have
made achieving climate security one of our top strategic international
priorities. Along with Africa it was one of the two key themes of our G8
Presidency. And we commissioned a report - by the former World Bank Chief
Economist, Nick Stern - which was the most detailed examination yet of the
economics of climate change. It was published at the end of last year and
has helped to bolster the case for immediate action. It shows that the costs of
tackling climate change are vastly outweighed by the costs we will face if we
don't.

Some oil-producing countries seem to be worried that the response to climate
change could threaten their economies. They need not. For a start there is
little sign that the global market for oil will contract in the foreseeable
future. Alternative and renewable energy sources to service rapidly
increasing global energy demand are certainly a big part of the picture but so too are
new technologies like clean burning power plants and carbon capture and storage.
Indeed, as Nick Stern has shown, the far greater threat that all of our
economies face is from global inaction - he predicts a possible collapse in
global GDP of around 20 per cent. One of the world's most successful venture
capitalists, John Doerr, has described the global response to climate change
as "the largest economic opportunity this century."

Paradoxically, the current high oil prices mean that countries in the Middle
East may be in one of the best positions to take advantage of this
opportunity. They have the capital available now to invest in the technologies of the
future - and that offers the chance to diversify economies and to stimulate
innovation and entrepreneurship across society. There are potential political benefits
too. If we get our response to climate change right we can turn the tension over
diminishing resources into a spur for regional cross-border co-operation.

The truth is that climate change is real and it is here. The good news is
that we have the technology, the capital and the knowledge to meet this
challenge. Governments need to set the political framework to encourage investment,
businesses need to take new technologies to market, consumers and citizens
have to make the choices that keeps up the momentum for change.

The choice facing the people of the world is whether we recognise our common
humanity and join together to tackle this problem; or whether we walk,
blindly and separately, into a bleak future. For me, that is no choice at all.

Margaret Beckett is the British Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs.