Environmental Issues global warming

'The next Labour ­government will commit Britain to making our electricity supply carbon free by 2030, ' says Labour leader Ed Miliband. Photograph: Murdo Macleod

The general election means 2015 is a critical year for Britain. It is also a critical year for the world on climate change. Within months of Britain voting, the UN is holding a summit in Paris to agree a binding global agreement to tackle climate change.

But there is a real danger that this great chance to achieve action is going to slip by, without the world even noticing. That might suit some politicians at home but it will be a disaster for our country and the world.

Over recent months the EU, the US and, most importantly, China, have all made substantial commitments to cut the growth of greenhouse gas emissions. They represent important progress but we need to challenge every country to be as ambitious as possible. Because even if agreement can be achieved, it may not be enough to address the scale of the challenge we face. This would make it all the more likely that we will not do what is necessary to meet our obligations to future generations.

As the floods in Britain showed last year, this is an issue of national – as well as global – security. We must be guided by the science, which shows that emissions are higher than anticipated and some effects are coming through more quickly than foreseen.

As the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has said, if the world is to hold warming below 2C, global emissions need to peak not long after 2020 and then decline rapidly to reach net zero in the second half of this century. The weaker the action now, the more rapid and costly the reductions will need to be later. I do not want to see Britain or any country having to adopt crisis measures to halt the slide into global catastrophe because we missed this critical opportunity now.

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• Environmental Consequences of global warming
• Environmental Science global warming