Global talks don’t have a great reputation for achievement.  But last week’s G8 climate change talks in Italy broke new ground, and offer an opportunity to prove the doubters wrong.

The collective commitment by countries such as United States, Japan and the UK to cut emissions by 80% by 2050, and work to avoid temperature increases above 2 degrees centigrade, is important.

But what now matters is that countries such as the United Kingdom show that we mean it when we say we will cut our emissions.

In combating climate change, we have already broken new ground ourselves in the United Kingdom. We’re on track to save twice the greenhouse gases we promised under Kyoto. We’ve tried to tackle some of the toughest environmental dilemmas head on, such as coal – where we have proposed conditions that will mean no new coal-fired power stations can be built without capturing a substantial proportion of their emissions and locking them permanently underground.

We also like to think we’ve learnt from others who have found success – such as the success in Germany helping people generate their own clean power. Like them, we will start to pay guaranteed rates for households, businesses, farms and schools to feed unused clean power into the grid.

But every country needs to step up its efforts to stay on track. So the low carbon transition plan I launched [this week] has five-year limits on the country’s total emissions, set in law.

This plan has at its heart a focus on new jobs and new business opportunities, as well as increasing our energy security. We’re taking this action now because we firmly believe that there’s an overriding economic and financial imperative to cutting carbon.

And even during a global recession, it’s this choice that will determine our path to economic prosperity and sustainable development.

The plan goes sector-by-sector to see how savings can be made. It includes a massive increase in renewable energy, greener transport and a firm focus on helping businesses make the most of low carbon opportunities.

It is a national plan, but this is a global problem and needs a global solution. We’ve published our manifesto for a global deal – to make clear that we are on the side arguing for ambition, effectiveness to make sure countries stick to their commitments and money goes where it makes most difference; and fairness, with both private and public finance to help the transition in the poorest countries.

But not all countries are able to finance the actions needed to reduce emissions, and adapt to the impacts of climate change that are already being felt. That’s why Prime Minister Gordon Brown recently proposed a way forward for developed and developing countries to agree new mechanisms to pay for tackling climate change. He urged countries to work together on a global figure of around $100 billion per year by 2020 to help developing countries reduce their emissions, tackle deforestation and adapt to the climate change already being experienced.
With the joint commitment last week from the biggest developed countries and the biggest developing countries, agreeing that the goal of any deal should be limiting climate change to two degrees, we know that a global deal is a step closer. There are less than 150 days to go before the world gathers to agree a new global climate change deal in Copenhagen.

Fulfilling the deal, and preventing the worst of dangerous climate change, will take not just a transition from every country, but from every community and every business. The time for transition is now.