Talking at this week’s international climate change talks in Warsaw, Davey also said that the UK would work with the EU push for a 50 per cent reduction in European emissions as long as other developed and emerging countries demonstrate “similar ambitions”.
“It is completely illogical for countries like the UK and the US to be decarbonising our own energy sectors while paying for coal-fired power plants to be built in other countries.
“It undermines global efforts to prevent dangerous climate change and stores up a future financial time bomb for those countries who would have to undo their reliance on coal-fired generation in the decades ahead, as we are having to do today,” he said.
Davey added: “Like the US, the UK recognises that there will be exceptions. We need to take account of new technologies such as Carbon Capture Storage and the very poorest countries where there are no alternatives.”
The secretary also pledged £50 million from the UK’s International Climate Fund to help more than 860,000 people adapt to those impacts.
“The most vulnerable countries are already feeling the impact of climate change and we know that is going to increase. As we have seen extreme weather events can have disastrous consequences for millions people in developing countries and we have a moral duty to help those countries prepare today for the climate changes ahead,” he said.