Climate Change

Any opportunity to debate action on climate change is welcome and there is a great deal in the motion in the name of the leader of the Liberal Democrats with which the official Opposition can agree. However, the Minister is also right: when it comes to global warming, the truth is that there is more that unites the parties at Westminster than separates us. There is nothing between all three major parties in our analysis of the seriousness of the challenge, even if the Government are somewhat tardy and muddled in their linking of the latest science to their policy projections. The general direction of policy is not hotly disputed—the battleground is how fast and how far. This would seem an appropriate time to pay tribute to the Prime Minister for his tireless work over the past decade to put climate change at the top of the international agenda. Nearly 20 years ago, the then Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, became the first world leader to send a clarion call to the planet to wake up to the dangers of man-made climate change. It would be churlish not to recognise the current Prime Minister’s considerable efforts to build on Lady Thatcher’s legacy as a forceful international advocate for action against global warming. I sincerely hope that he will continue that role when, after a decade at the helm, he finally retires to make way for an older man. It is not the general analysis of the problem that divides us from the Government, nor even many of the solutions that they advocate. It is the singular lack of urgency, after 10 years of complacency, that we find unacceptable. Erudite speeches abroad are no substitute for effective action at home. Three manifesto commitments on reducing emissions by 20 per cent. by 2012 have been quietly shelved. Everyone knows that Labour will meet its Kyoto commitments only because of the carbon dioxide cuts achieved under the last Conservative Government, largely with the dash for gas, despite the fact that when the Labour Government took office, they tried to turn the clock back with a policy bias in favour of dirty coal. I would do a disservice to the debate if I were to wrangle over only Labour’s serial failure since 1997. The new politics of climate change are about the future, not the past. The scale of the challenge requires politicians to find new ways of working together. We cannot afford the efforts of one individual Parliament, or one Prime Minister’s Administration, to be anything other than part of a coherent long-term strategy to combat the greatest threat that mankind faces in the 21st century. On Saturday night, I joined a debate on climate change with the students of the Pestalozzi college in my constituency. The Pestalozzi organisation brings disadvantaged but gifted children from the world’s developing countries to the United Kingdom so that they can study for the international baccalaureate and prepare for university. Students from Asia, Africa and the Americas gave their perspective on the global challenges that we face. One of the many inspiring comments that were written on a banner that they produced at the end of the evening was, ““Our approach: less accusation, more action””. Thanks to the leadership of my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron), the modern Conservative party is squaring up to the daunting changes required to tackle man-made global warming, but it is doing so with a sense of hope and optimism.