Governments can no longer duck their responsibility for tackling global warming by claiming they would be alone in doing so, after new figures confirmed most of the world’s largest economies are taking significant steps to avoid catastrophic climate change.

That was the stark message from the UK’s top climate policy adviser, Lord Deben, to MPs and other policymakers at a global climate summit in London yesterday.

Despite painfully slow progress towards an international climate treaty, 32 of the 33 countries audited in the latest Globe Climate Legislation Study are implementing significant climate or clean energy policies, and 31 are enacting energy efficiency policies.

Deben, who is president of Globe International and chairman of the UK’s Committee on Climate Change (CCC), said the report “peculiarly” revealed that governments are already doing more at a national level than they are prepared to commit to as part of an international deal.

“Normally they agree to international deals but then do very little towards it, or tell others to do it, but in this case most countries are doing more than they will agree to internationally,” he said.

Speaking to BusinessGreen on the sidelines of the event, he argued most countries understand the need to tackle climate change in order to protect their economies and citizens.

However, negotiations on the international stage are prone to being thwarted by disagreements between rich and poor nations over who should take responsibility for climate change.

He also told delegates that the new report was the best argument against the “simplistic view of popular press in every country… who argue that their country should drop climate policy plans ‘because no one else has any’”.

“It isn’t the easy answer to ignore climate change,” he added. “To ignore climate change is the stupid answer. It means that your economy is less able to handle the problems of the future.

“Climate change is not an alternative you can put aside in times of difficulty. It is the answer to the problems of recession and the economy. It is not an alternative you take up when things are going well.”

Deben also told BusinessGreen the report should act as a warning to those companies that have not yet taken steps to become more resilient to future climate risk, as it shows that climate policies are becoming increasingly inevitable.

“The world is going in one direction,” he said. “Canada is the anomaly and the whole of the rest of the world is moving in one direction, even the United States with all the attack of the Tea Party, it’s still moving in that direction.

“So if you’re building a business, you really have to build it on the basis that climate change is going to be a significant factor and therefore in legislation and regulation. If you’re building a sensible business you will make sure that you take that fully into account so you won’t get yourself into the expensive business of trying to comply in someone else’s timescale.”