Climate change is our biggest threat

The world is currently confronted by two great challenges: the financial crisis and climate change. Both can cause immense damage to the whole world and both require global solutions. The longer we delay, the more serious the effects will be.

In the case of climate change, we are already starting to experience these effects: storms, floods and periods of drought are on the increase. We must therefore combat the causes of global warming while protecting ourselves as much as possible from its consequences and paying for any damage that we cannot prevent.

This is an enormous challenge, and one that no country can overcome in isolation. The poorer countries of the south are already dependent on the solidarity of the industrialised nations of the north. They have a right to this, because up to now they have contributed the least towards climate change, yet have suffered the most from its effects.

In order to compensate for this inequity I proposed a worldwide carbon tax in Nairobi in 2006. Based on the polluter pays principle, this tax would be paid by all nations into a special fund. It could be levied on each individual and each company that causes carbon emissions.

This would have double benefits. On the one hand, the large producers of carbon dioxide would be encouraged to reduce their emissions.

On the other, sufficient financial means would be raised across the world to pay for the consequences of climate change and these could be managed in a fund to pay for adaptation measures. At the next world climate conference in Copenhagen there will be an opportunity to progress this concept even further.

In Copenhagen, as government representatives from all over the world, we must ensure that we continue to combat climate change once the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012. We must all make binding commitments to this.

Clear rules are needed at both global and national levels that deal with the causes of the threat - the emission of climate-damaging greenhouse gases. Quantities must have binding limits, otherwise we will not succeed in stopping global warming.

Switzerland will make its contribution to this. In our country we are introducing a carbon tax on fossil heating and motor fuels. We also intend to increase the proportion of renewable energies in the coming decades while improving energy efficiency and making transport as sustainable as possible by encouraging low consumption vehicles and accelerating the switch of goods transport from road to rail.

By adopting this strategy we intend to reduce our carbon emissions by at least 20 per cent by 2020, in line with the EU.

As we make all these efforts, we look to Abu Dhabi with a certain amount of admiration, where there will soon be a city that is completely self-sufficient in energy. We are still a long way from this ideal. Masdar encourages us to build more houses that produce rather than consume energy and to develop cars with zero CO2 emissions.

These investments in a promising market are sustainable, because they create jobs and wealth, while averting economic costs running into billions that would result from unfettered global warming.

Investments in climate and energy policies are therefore also investments to the benefit of the global economy and they help counteract the financial crisis. Under no circumstances must we play these two crises off each other; instead we must recognise sustainability concepts and exploit them for a double effect.

Abu Dhabi recognised this very early and with Masdar is providing a response to the challenges of both climate change and the financial crisis.

Masdar is showing the way in climate policy. As Swiss minister of environment and energy, I am pleased and proud that Switzerland and its innovative companies will make a contribution to this fascinating and groundbreaking project.

I am already looking forward to visiting the planned Swiss Village in Masdar where Swiss companies will further develop and perfect their technologies for improving energy efficiency and better utilising renewable energies.

The writer is Swiss Minister of Environment, Energy and Transport