Sustainable development allows people to meet their basic needs and enjoy a good quality of life without compromising the quality of life of future generations.

In the last 20 years, it has become clear that our current model of development is unsustainable. The negative effect our consumption patterns have on the environment and the climate suggests we’re living beyond our means.

This means we must start to address issues such as the atmospheric build-up of greenhouse gasses. The latest projections show that by 2080, if emissions continue at current levels, we could be looking at

The consequences for our children and grandchildren could be a world that is partly uninhabitable, where wars break out over land and natural resources.

As the Department for children, we are working to improve the prospects for their future well-being as well as their current lives. This also means making sure that our actions don’t have an adverse impact on children in other countries.

The UK Government, Scottish Executive, Welsh Assembly Government and the Northern Ireland Administration have agreed a set of principles that provide a basis for sustainable development policy in the UK, spearheaded by the new Department for Energy and Climate Change.

Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC)

The Department brings together much of the Climate Change Group, previously housed within The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), with the Energy Group from the former Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR).

The UK Government, for the first time anywhere in the world, is introducing a long-term legally binding framework to tackle the dangers of climate change.

The Climate Change Bill was published in 2008 to address both the causes and consequences of climate change. It creates a new approach to managing and responding to climate change in the UK.

The Road to Copenhagen: In December 2009, Denmark will host a major UN conference on climate change. This is a crucial opportunity to agree a new global agreement to come into effect when the Kyoto Protocol ends in 2012.

The Department has also set out its own contribution to sustainable development.

“I can tell you with assurance that global, sweeping, concerted action is needed now. There is no time to waste.

“Slowing and even reversing the effects of climate change is the defining challenge of our age.”

- UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon, launching the fourth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 17 November 2007.