Treaty of Lisbon (No. 8)

In earlier interventions I expressed frustration at the way in which the six words on climate change have been used to take over a day's debate. The debate has, however, been useful. We have heard a series of interesting and informed speeches on UK and EU climate change policy. Some contributions—including that of the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr. Whitehead), which is surprising, given his environmental expertise—have criticised the Conservatives for suggesting that tokenism could be involved in the way in which today's debate has been dealt with. That criticism is entirely unfounded. The Conservative position is quite clear: we absolutely see the EU as having a fundamental role on climate change. We embrace the EU in regard to its competence on an area such as this, and to its making a contribution on climate change. What has united all of those, regardless of party, who moved away from the constitutional points of the debate towards the wider environmental issues is the sense of frustration at the failure to turn what my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Mr. Ainsworth) called rhetoric into reality. That is what has united all of us today. Of course, if those six words in the treaty will help the EU to put climate change further up its list of priorities, and if they will lead to policies and frameworks that start to provide the results on climate change that we all want in Europe, their inclusion will have been worth while. However, we have not seen any evidence to suggest that that would be the case. I joined the Environmental Audit Committee a couple of years ago, probably as a bit of a climate change sceptic. I certainly did not like the zealous, almost evangelical tone used by the many people who had ““got”” climate change and rather divisively felt that others had been inadequate in failing to do so. I have wrestled with the subject since, although I have not spoken or written about it a great deal. Having assessed the science and heard the evidence, my position now is that there is a serious likelihood that man-made emissions could have a devastating effect on this earth and that rises in temperature caused by that could have calamitous effects in certain places, whether they would be as apocalyptic as the hon. Member for Reading, West (Martin Salter) suggested or not. That means that anyone with any common sense and who is used to assessing probabilities would want to take action. I agree with Members who have mentioned the Stern report. Hard numbers have now been put on some of those probabilities. That is why, in many parts of the world, including the sole superpower, it is those in the business community—the hard-headed business people who are interested in looking after their shareholders and returning profits, and not those who are given to hand-wringing environmentalism—who have started to lead the debate. They are used to assessing probabilities. I should like to see us all learn to use the language of risk. We should not do as the Government have sometimes done—in their papers preparing for the Climate Change Bill, for example—and state that there is no longer any debate on climate change. Of course there is; there are many uncertainties. However, the likelihood that man-made emissions are affecting our planet is growing all the time. The fact that so many of the world's leading scientists feel that way means that we need to take the issue seriously. It is right and proper to take prudent action to become more energy efficient, along with other steps. My hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Mr. Atkinson), who is now back in his place, made an important speech on biofuels and the role of agriculture in tackling climate change. With respect to the hon. Member for Angus (Mr. Weir), I think that it is important, if we are to carry people with us when we take action, that we take rational and sensible action. It is quite clear that the biofuels policy of HM Government and of the EU is not rational. I should like to quote from evidence given to the Environmental Audit Committee by a senior scientific adviser who sits on the scientific advisory committee to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. It was his view that"““if there is a scientific basis for the Renewable Transport Fuels Obligation, I do not know what it is and I have not seen it.””"