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DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Well now, the climate change deal reached in Paris yesterday is being described as historic after two weeks of intense negotiations, extended negotiations, close to 200 countries agreed to the pact which has a legally binding core.  It aims to limit the rise in global temperatures to less than two degrees Celsius.  Well I’m joined now by the Liberal Democrat, Ed Davey, who was of course the Energy Secretary in the coalition government until May, a very good morning to you.  Well everyone would accept that it’s not perfect but is it a good deal?   

ED DAVEY: It’s a fantastic deal, much better than many of us expected even just a few days ago. I think that this Paris climate treaty is going to go down in history as the most important international agreement since the formation of the United Nations in 1945 and some people may think that is hyperbole but if you look at what it means for our way of life, for our economies, how we drive our cars, heat our homes, power our industry, it is going to be dramatic.  It won’t all happen overnight but over the next two or three decades, the way we live our lives, the way we run our economies, will change.  

DM: But do you think, and this is the question that many environmental campaigners and others are asking, there is compulsion and enough oversight to make sure that the things that are written down here actually happen?  

ED DAVEY:  Well compulsion hasn’t been working for a number of years in the climate change talks and last year in Lima, when I was leading the UK delegation, we went for a bottom up approach where countries were invited to bring four pledges and people said at the time that it wouldn’t work because it wasn’t mandatory but it has worked.  We have seen over 180 countries come forward with pledges to cut their greenhouse gas emissions, something that has never happened before so it is truly historic.  Actually there are lot of countries in the world who don’t look for legal texts like we do in the House of Commons or the European Union, they don’t want the UN to impose those sorts of strictures on them but if you invite them to come forward and you make it possible with climate finance or the huge technological breakthroughs we’ve seen, then they will do it and that’s why I am so optimistic.  It is the underlying politics now has changed, it has changed in the United States, it’s changed in China, it’s changed in India, it’s changing globally and that’s why I think this deal will deliver.  

DM: But it is of course fundamentally about this generation and previous generations providing for future ones.  Now there are circumstances which we can’t envisage within our own country, within other countries, where future governments will say we are not going to adhere to this deal and there is not much we can do about that.  

ED DAVEY: Well you are right but you could say that about many international agreements, there has to be a degree of trust but if you look at the way that people have been responding to the deal we agreed in Lima last year, indeed the deals we did in Doha and Warsaw before that, we are seeing a change and do you know what, I think you’re asking the wrong question because I think it won’t be a question of whether people will adhere to this, the way technology is going – cutting the cost of solar power, cutting the cost of wind power for example – there is actually going to be a race to green energy and green investments.  Already we are seeing the business community, the financial community, saying this is really helpful.  The politicians, the global governance has given us a very clear signal and we wanted a clear signal and so I think you are going to see literally trillions of dollars invested in green energy and that for your viewers means lower prices as well as cleaner energy.  So that’s why this is so exciting.

DM: But isn’t it the right question when it comes to our country which is what I wanted to get towards?  The Climate Change Act of 2008 passed by a Labour government then went through the coalition government years with you and now it seems a Conservative only government is beginning to roll back on that, only seven and a bit years later.

ED DAVEY: Yes, well I’m very annoyed and everyone should be quite angry about what George Osborne has been doing to energy policy since the election. When the Liberal Democrats were in the coalition we made major steps forward trebling renewable electricity for example.  We were seen as a world leader in policy on renewables and indeed on low carbon generally.  For example, the way they have cut and got rid of the carbon capture storage programme where the UK were one of the leaders in the world, is a national disgrace so you’re right, I am very worried about what the UK Conservative government is doing but they still have to abide by the law. The Climate Change Act still is in place and I would call on George Osborne and the Conservative government, make it clear that your energy policies will be in line with the Climate Change Act, with the renewable energy directive from the European Union and if you don’t you are actually breaking the ministerial codes because you’ve got a legal obligation Mr Osborne to act legally and your energy policies are putting the government in an illegal position in my view.  

DM: That’s my very point and let’s apply it to other bigger emitters of greenhouse gasses, the United States.  If Donald Trump or a like-minded Republican gets in in the United States do any of President Obama’s promises count for anything?  


ED DAVEY: Well it’s very interesting you ask that question because I was asking that in my various trips to the White House to talk to people like John Podesta and Todd Stern who are America’s leading climate change negotiators and they said that what Obama has been doing, particularly through the Environment Protection Agency, using bizarrely enough the 1970 Clean Air Act, he is actually enshrining the policies of his government so that a Donald Trump, God help us, wouldn’t be able to overturn them and you’ve got to remember that America is very litigious, they go to law, they go to courts very quickly and Obama is doing something very clever.  He is also doing something more important, he is actually changing public opinion in the United States.  He has been working with the American military who are really worried about climate change, he has been working with American farmers who are worried about their agricultural yields and they are often in the Mid-West and typical Republican states so you’re seeing public opinion change as well in the United States so I think it would be quite difficult for a Republic President both to unlock the legal changes that President Obama is putting in place and also to change people’s minds because I think many people in America now get how urgent it is that we need to respond to climate change.  

DM: And back to the UK, do you think given your detailed knowledge and recent oversight of energy policy and getting the mix right, because we’re getting a lot of warnings that whilst we’re making these transitions, we make these adjustments, we might not be able to keep the lights on.  Are you sure that the policy as set in train now will avoid that?

ED DAVEY: Well I think actually the government’s changes make it more likely that the lights will go out.  What we were doing in the coalition, the Liberal Democrats were making sure we had a mixed approach, a diverse approach so we were looking at gas and nuclear like the government are doing but we were also looking at renewables, efficiency, carbon capture storage and by having a more diverse mixed approach that was more secure for the country and meant we’d be able to go greener in a cheaper more affordable way.  By taking off technologies as the Tories are doing, taking off renewables, cutting investment in energy efficiency, abolishing the carbon capture storage programme, the Tories are actually putting our economy at risk.  It means bills will be higher, it means that energy security – particularly electricity supply security – it will be at risk at the end of this decade.  The government really now needs to think again, it has made some huge mistakes, it’s going to have to swallow its pride and change again back to what the energy policies were before May.  Here in Paris there couldn’t be a clearer signal – Amber Rudd, George Osborne, David Cameron, get real, look at what China is doing, look at what India and America is doing and understand that we cannot go in the other direction in the way you are trying to do.  The Conservatives have got a real problem now, this Climate Change Treaty is a real challenge to them.  

DM: Okay Mr Davey, good talking to you, thank you very much indeed.  Ed Davey there, live in Paris.