Amidst the financial crisis and the global economic downturn the world should not lose sight of the greatest global challenge: dangerous climate change. Countries should not reduce, but scale up their efforts to tackle climate change, because the transition to a low carbon economy is the only way to a sustainable economic recovery. If we miss the opportunity to put  our economies on a low carbon path, we will not only face an extended recession, but as the UK's Prime Minister Gordon Brown put it "a human and economic catastrophy that will make today's crisis small".

We need to bring forward the necessary investment to ensure that we build climate resilient economies.  A low carbon approach to economic recovery will ensure sustainable growth through providing the investment and jobs needed, improve energy security by reducing dependency on fossil fuels, and at the same time avoid dangerous climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Progressive states already integrating this approach into their stimulus packages are thus laying the foundations of sustainable economic growth and a green economy.

We know since the publishing of the Stern Review in 2007 that the costs of unabated climate change are far higher than the costs of combating climate change. With the onset of the global economic slowdown we have an historic opportunity now to engineer a technological transformation resulting in a more prosperous, cleaner and safer future. Climate and environmental industries represent huge business opportunities and are forecast to grow at such a pace that in a decade they will become the key driver for economic growth.

Countries taking early action on climate change will benefit from the emerging global green industrial revolution. However, the world as a whole can only avoid dangerous climate change with all its dire consequences if the countries - both governments and the private sector - work together. Governments create the right policy conditions and business make investments and provide the technology for the transition.  The UNFCCC process provides the framework for concluding the necessary global agreement. Therefore the UK's strategic foreign policy objective is to ensure that the UNFCCC summit in Copenhagen in December 2009 reaches a truly global deal on emission reductions. The UK is also demonstrating its commitment both at home and internationally. Domestic measures include the Climate Change Bill (the first of its kind in the world) and ambitious GHG reduction targets. International efforts include CCS demonstration or zero carbon plants e.g. in China.