Treaty of Lisbon (No. 8)

That is entirely the case. Europe has been a force for good in improving the quality of our environment. That is the truth. Those who carp at the EU and do not wish it to have those responsibilities and powers must then accept the consequence of the lack of action that would have happened if Europe had not taken the lead. That is precisely the reason that we need Europe to act on climate change. I would describe the Lisbon treaty as a further step in the journey in protecting the environment for us all. The Prime Minister said in November last year that our membership of the EU"““gives us and 26 other countries the unique opportunity to work together on economic, environmental and security challenges””." We all know that dangerous climate change is all three of those challenges and more. One has only to think for a moment about the possible consequences of reduced water availability in the world. What will we do when human beings start to fight each other about water? How will we cope with the consequences for crop yields of increased temperature? What will we do as a world when large numbers of people begin to move around the globe in pursuit of a safe place to live, because they cannot live where they lived previously as dangerous climate change has rendered their homes uninhabitable? I and other hon. Members have seen with our own eyes people who are experiencing that precise situation in the developing world. The truth is that the world has come a long way since 1988, when the World Meteorological Organisation and the UN Environment Programme established the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. At that point, few people were aware of what was going on, and in the years since things have changed dramatically. The science is no longer in doubt. Climate change is happening, and it is happening fast. Time is short and the world must act now. The UK Government have played an important part in leading that debate in the EU and internationally. After all, in 1998 the UK Government, during our presidency, led the EU in pushing for the historic Kyoto agreement. The EU emissions trading scheme is based on the UK's domestic scheme, which started three years earlier. We were the first country in the world to do that. The EU picked it up and, as has been said, it is now the bedrock of the EU's efforts to reduce emissions by putting a price on carbon. The emissions trading scheme is the largest scheme of its kind in the world and covers the largest emitters, who produce almost half the EU's CO2 emissions. We want other sectors to be included in the scheme, which is precisely why we pressed for aviation to be included. That was agreed at the Environment Council in December.