Thread by @_richardblack

#OnThisDay 30 years ago, Margaret Thatcher became the first leader of any major nation to call for a #UnitedNations treaty on #climate change

You can watch the speech here or read it here margaretthatcher.org/document/107817 - it remains IMHO one of the best speeches ever given on the subject, especially given the year and the context

Unusually for any leader's #UNGA speech, she devoted the entire thing to a single issue - '...the threat to our global environment'

Science abounds throughout the speech - from Charles Darwin's seminal voyages that discovered evolution to the British Antarctic Survey @BAS_News scientists who had recently discovered the ozone hole

And from that science come warnings that resonate even today, about the cumulative impact of everything that humanity is doing to impact the world

'Degrading the land surfaces, polluting the waters and adding greenhouse gases to the air at an unprecedented rate—all this is new in the experience of the earth. It is mankind and his activities which are changing the environment of our planet in damaging and dangerous ways.'

The result, she suggested, would be unprecedented 'fundamental and widespread' change. 'Change to the sea around us, change to the atmosphere above, leading in turn to change in the world's climate, which could alter the way we live in the most fundamental way of all.'

And specifically on #climate change - global action was needed to solve a global problem. 'We should aim to have a convention on global climate change ready by the time the World Conference on Environment and Development [the Rio Earth Summit] meets in 1992.'

It happened. And now, the UK is preparing for the first time to host one of the annual summits of that global treaty, the @UNFCCC - in #Glasgow at the end of next year. It's a big one. And, importantly, hosting it commands support right across Parliament and right across society

Today, in @thetimes, five of the UK's leading climate scientists set out the challenge for the incoming Prime Minister and his/her government

'The next prime minister will have to focus relentlessly through the year on brokering a summit agreement that finally turns the tide against rising global emissions.

'This includes putting the UK demonstrably on track to its #netzero target well before the summit opens, providing a material example of climate leadership in a world that badly needs it.'

As a reminder, @theCCCuk tells us that the UK is currently not on track to meet existing carbon budgets, let alone the net zero target that came into law in June theccc.org.uk/publication/re…

But it's also an amazing opportunity. If the UK is demonstrably on track to #netzero well before the #COP26 summit, opens, it will have an excellent leadership story to tell

Looks like being a cracker of a year