In a few days time, world leaders in Copenhagen have a chance to prove that they are up to the biggest challenge facing the planet. To put the progressive case for climate action, the Labour environment campaign, SERA, have launched a pamphlet bringing together prominent European politicians on the left, to set out their views on how best to tackle climate change and emphasising the values of social justice in finding a solution.

International cooperation is the key to finding a fair and just solution and the values of the progressive left are the values needed to move forward. The developed world must accept and take responsibility to ensure no country is left behind to suffer the devastating effects of climate change while the developing world must embrace new technologies and the offer of climate change finance to ensure that their growth does not impede the future health of the planet. This can only be done if all the world’s countries and government are willing to compromise and move forward together.

Contrast the values of the progressive left with the views of the Conservatives, and Eurosceptics, who eschew the ideals of internationalism and believe in the power of the market to deliver optimum outcomes. As David Miliband argues in the SERA pamphlet ‘Climate change challenges the very basis of conservative thinking. It challenges the idea of national sovereignty over decision making since it is the defining example of interdependence and the need to pool powers in international institutions. It challenges conservatives’ attachment to free markets. Markets work when the price of goods reflect their value, but climate change is the defining example of market failure- where the price does not reflect the cost to the environment. It challenges conservatives’ dogmatic distrust of the state since it requires the power of the state to regulate, tax and subsidise…it is simply not enough to implore greater responsibility from individuals for a problem that needs organised collective action.’

This is the era of progressive values, and it will only be through globally co-ordinated government commitments that we can reach a binding consensus.

But climate change creates opportunities as well as threats, and the dichotomy of growth versus sustainability is both untrue and unrealistic. This is especially true for industrialising countries including China and India, and for countries across the world where people live in absolute poverty. If we are to reach a deal in Copenhagen it has to be consistent with the values of aspiration, progress and economic growth – both in the developed and developing world.

Copenhagen is a chance to build a better, stronger and more sustainable economy. Climate change should be at the heart of our economic policies – so that we transform industry and build a sustainable economic future. But, a lasting deal across 189 countries with differing economic, environmental and political realities is far from assured without the developed world taking responsibility for their actions and without the developing world taking measures to ensure that their growth does not jeopardise the future of our shared planet. Technology and climate change finance are at the cutting edge of the challenge.

We have the scientific evidence on the scale of the problem and on the impact of climate change – both now and in the future. Failure to act is inexcusable – representing a collective failure to future generations and to the poorest people in the world. International co-operation and a commitment to the role of governmental action – at the core of what it means to be on the progressive left – are needed to emerge at the other side of Copenhagen with a deal we can be proud of.