British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his Dutch counterpart, Jan Peter Balkenende, said the world is close to "catastrophic tipping points" in an open letter released Thursday, on the eve of an EU leaders' meeting in Finland. The pair say that climate change and energy security should be treated as two parts of the same issue — "climate security" — in order to address it.
"We have a window of only 10-15 years to take the steps we need to avoid crossing catastrophic tipping points," the letter says.
"We know we can meet this challenge. Europe has the opportunity to lead the world in making the technology transition to a low carbon economy that will be necessary over the next few decades.
"The technologies are already available or within reach, and there are real potential economic benefits to European market leadership in this area."
It advocates "much more ambitious" energy partnerships with countries including India and China and calls for tighter caps in the EU emissions trading scheme after 2012, possibly even linking it to non-EU countries.
Europe's political leaders are meeting up for one day in Lahti, Finland, Friday and are expected to focus on boosting innovation.
EU unveils action plan to cut energy consumption
