Climate talks one of the great challenges of our time

As a British Foreign Office minister, visiting Thailand this week, I'm in a strange position when I raise climate change.

I come from a country whose wealth was built on oil and coal, and the electoral district I represent mined the coal that powered the Industrial Revolution for more than a century. They called it black gold.

You might say it's a bit late - or even a bit hypocritical - for us to start preaching about climate change.

But there is no way around the fact that the economic growth of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries jeopardises future economic, energy and climate security for all of us right now.

Climate change is a global challenge because everyone is vulnerable, including people in our two countries.

Thailand, for example, with over 7,000 kilometres of coastline right in the middle of the tropical monsoon region, is particularly at risk.

With more than a quarter of the labour force working in agriculture, and 28 million people living less than 100 kilometres from the sea, it could feel the worst impacts of climate change.

A recent study estimated that climate change could have catastrophic consequences by 2100. Temperatures almost 5 degrees Celsius higher than in 1990. Sea levels up by 70 centimetres. Rice yields down by 50 per cent.

A GDP which is 6.7 per cent lower than it would otherwise be. As British economist Lord Stern has said, this would represent the greatest market failure in history.

I know the government of Thailand, like the British government, recognises this, and is looking at solutions. Its National Strategy on Climate Change has come up with some ambitious plans for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, such as a 20-per-cent target for energy from renewable sources by 2022.

This is the kind of leadership that larger countries need to adopt if we are to avoid dangerous climate change.

In the 21st century, we need a new smarter form of growth and development for all. We need a new type of industrial revolution, harnessing the power of the wind, earth and sun to fuel a cleaner more sustainable future. Not business as usual - but a new business frontier.

But that new economy will need governments to come together, and fast. The United Nations climate change conference in Copenhagen, in four months' time, is our chance.

We need to agree on an ambitious plan to tackle climate change, written by all countries and in which everyone takes part.

This will be one of the greatest diplomatic challenges of our time, as important as any peace treaty. It involves all of us. But it is a challenge we cannot shirk.

Thailand has a key role to play. Using its recent experience of extreme climate vulnerability, and flexing its muscle regionally, it could push for an ambitious outcome in Copenhagen. This means limiting temperature rises to 2 degrees Celsius and coming up with hard targets for the developed world, clear actions by the developing world, and cash to finance all this.

This isn't just a question of sharing a burden.

It's a matter of achieving a harmonious balance between economics and the environment, because there are huge economic opportunities in this new economy.

Clean energy will require new technologies, better transport, smarter goods and will create new green markets, and new green jobs.

There is an old English poem by Andrew Marvell, which refers to the race against time: "but always at my back I hear Time's winged chariot hurrying near".

We need to listen urgently and attentively to the scientists and their timetable. Of course we should face this challenge with optimism and confidence, because this next great global shift will be to low carbon and it could be as profound as the discovery of electricity, or the invention of the combustion engine.

We can and must make that shift now. In December we have the opportunity to define a shared future. Let's seize that opportunity right now.