When David Miliband stands up in the Joseph Black building in Edinburgh University this afternoon the message he will deliver on climate change will be grim. Starkly put he will say we must change our ways or face very major problems, sooner rather than later.

The backdrop could not be more apposite. Black was a Scottish physicist and chemist, who over 200 years ago studied the properties of CO2 and, as long ago as 1794, identified it as a threat to living things.

Mr Miliband, the Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, will speak only hours after the prestigious panel of 2500 international scientists, advisers to the United Nations, officially declare that global temperatures are not only still rising, but rising faster than ever.

In almost apocalyptic terms, the UN climate panel blames humans for the warming, which it says is so bad that oceans will keep rising for more than 1000 years even if governments stabilise greenhouse gas emissions this century.

In response, Mr Miliband will not equivocate. Speaking to The Herald before taking the train journey north (note his eco-friendly mode of transport), he said: "I am going to say that today is an important day for the emerging scientific consensus about climate change, that scientists are becoming more and more certain, that climate change is happening, that it is man-made and that it is dangerous.

"Secondly, that climate change won't be tackled if it is left in the box labelled the environment. It has got to be put in the box that is about economy, that is about economic policy, social policy, about politics and about security around the world, and, thirdly, that we need all levels of government to contribute to tackle this problem, and we need individuals to play their part too."

Tony Blair, well warned by Sir David King, the government's chief scientist, has been at the forefront of the climate change debate but Mr Miliband admits that even in the UK, the policies have not kept up with the science.

He said: "What is true, and this applies as much in the UK as anywhere else, is that the science is faster than the politics, and the science has got more dangerous, more quickly than the policy has been reorientated.

"For 150 years we have pumped carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as if it had no economic or environmental cost. Now we know it has environmental cost from the scientists, and, from Nick Stern and others, we know it has an economic cost.

"This is a boomerang of very dangerous proportions because we have been polluting without recognising the dangers of it, and unless we change, unless we decarbonise, above all in areas like heat, electricity and transport which constitute the bulk of the emissions, we are going to cause ourselves serious economic as well as environmental damage."

UN officials are hoping the severity of the report will pile pressure on governments, companies and individuals to do more to curb the build up of greenhouse gases.

In the UK, there has been a marginal improvement in the carbon reduction figures: the household figure is down and businesses such as Marks & Spencer and Tesco have pledged to cut their carbon emissions by 80% in five years. The government intends to be carbon neutral by 2012 and by 2016 every new home will be carbon neutral.

Mr Miliband worries that this will not be enough. "I used to think this was a major problem for our grandchildren, I now think it is a major problem for us."

Insisting that the government must set an example, he said: "The public want to know if the government is going to raise its game, and we have to show them that we are. That is why the legislative commitment to a climate change bill is so significant, a pathway to 60% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2050, genuinely a landmark piece of legislation for the world, never mind the UK.

"The public want to know too that business is going to play its role because then they will feel their contribution can make a difference. It is a sort of I will if you will' principle. On my own, changing my light bulbs, changing my electricity supplier isn't going to save the planet but if lots and lots of people do it and that is matched by the big players, business and government, we can be part of a global movement that is world-changing."

He said there were very, very clear reasons for the developed world changing its behaviour even if India and China continued to develop at the present rate.

"There is not a cat in hell's chance of the Indians and the Chinese choosing a low-carbon path unless we change our behaviour and that includes the United States. As long as the industrialised countries are seen to be high polluting then there is no way India or China, who by cruel irony face some of the greatest threats from climate change, are going to change.

"The discussion I had last week in India was look, the old debate was do you have development or do you have environmental protection. The new debate says development is non-negotiable.

"There are 350 million people in India living on less than a dollar a day so the choice is low carbon or high carbon, and to the extent low carbon has greater cost we have a responsibility to help pay the difference because we have caused the problem.

"Carbon dioxide sits in the atmosphere for 150 years - they are right to say if you caused the problem, you should pay. We are right to say if we change our ways and you don't change yours then we are all in trouble. So we have got a responsibility of self-interest as well a moral interest."

Mr Miliband does not know for sure but he is confident that Gordon Brown will make climate change a priority when, as seems likely, he moves into No 10.

"I think Gordon did a great thing in setting up the Stern review, long before David Cameron had ever made a speech about the environment, and I think that the challenge of climate change speaks to Gordon's values and aspirations for the country.

"You cannot care about national development and not care about the battle against climate change. You can't care about economic prosperity and not care about it, and you can't care about social justice and not care about climate change. I think this does speak to his agenda in a very potent way and I think the speech that he made at the UN in April last year was a very, very powerful speech and showed a man who had really got into the issues and understood them."


  • Miliband's CV

  • Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and MP for South Shields.
  • Reached the cabinet last year, and is certain to remain when, as expected, Gordon Brown succeeds Tony Blair.
  • Was minister of state in the Department of Education and Skills, Cabinet Office, and communities and local government before reaching the cabinet. Headed Tony Blair's policy unit.
  • The anti-Brown camp hoped to persuade him to stand for the leadership. He declined but may stand for the leadership one day.
  • Married with one son.
  • Brother Ed, MP for Doncaster, is a junior minister in the Cabinet Office and was a special adviser to Gordon Brown.