The British Prime Minister last night used the high-profile Prince of Wale’s Business and the Environment Programme lecture as a platform to push the need for response to climate change higher up on the global agenda. Some excerpts:

What is now plain is that the emission of greenhouse gases, associated with industrialisation and strong economic growth from a world population that has increased sixfold in 200 years, is causing global warming at a rate that began as significant, has become alarming and is simply unsustainable in the long-term. And by long-term I do not mean centuries ahead. I mean within the lifetime of my children certainly; and possibly within my own. And by unsustainable, I do not mean a phenomenon causing problems of adjustment. I mean a challenge so far-reaching in its impact and irreversible in its destructive power, that it alters radically human existence.

The problem and let me state it frankly at the outset—is that the challenge is complicated politically by two factors. First, its likely effect will not be felt to its full extent until after the time for the political decisions that need to be taken, has passed. In other words, there is a mismatch in timing between the environmental and electoral impact. Secondly, no one nation alone can resolve it. It has no definable boundaries. Short of international action commonly agreed and commonly followed through, it is hard even for a large country to make a difference on its own.

There is one further preliminary point. Just as science and technology has given us the evidence to measure the danger of climate change, so it can help us find safety from it. The potential for innovation, for scientific discovery and hence, of course for business investment and growth, is enormous. With the right framework for action, the very act of solving it can unleash a new and benign commercial force to take the action forward, providing jobs, technology spin-offs and new business opportunities as well as protecting the world we live in.

But the issue is urgent. If there is one message I would leave with you and with the British people today it is one of urgency.

Full text of speech here.

Next year, Blair has the presidency of the G8. In this speech, he stated that he will use that position to tackle climate change—which will include trying to wrest more cooperation from the U.S., and to engage China and India in the process.

British transportation policy, as a result of the government’s focus on climate change, is aggressive in areas such as funding fleet conversions to alternative fuels, the CO₂ tax and support for biofuels.