European Affairs

One of the issues that will be high up the agenda for the meeting at the end of this week will be climate change. All the parties currently represented in the Chamber recognise the importance of tackling climate change. The evidence is mounting that even previous projections for the rate at which global warming was taking place have been on the low side. Much depends on the possibility of the world's agreeing a comprehensive climate change treaty at Copenhagen later this year. It is fair to say that if that agreement is not reached we are almost certainly beyond many of the famous tipping points after which damage from climate change will be irreversible. We all know that reaching a climate change agreement at Copenhagen will be extremely difficult. Notwithstanding the commitment of the Obama Administration, there are signs that there will be difficulties in getting a comprehensive agreement through the US Congress. Other major industrialised states have not yet come forward with an indication that they are prepared to sign up to a comprehensive agreement. For example, the position of the Japanese Government, which was revealed only a week or so ago, is extremely disappointing; and other Governments still have a long way to go. The role of the European Union in getting a global climate change agreement is extremely important: first, because the EU has to agree to its own domestic policies on climate change in order to show that it is serious about tackling emissions; and secondly, because the EU has a crucial role to play in developing a global agreement on providing finance for climate change mitigation and adaptation in developing countries. Those are the two essential characteristics of any EU position. If the EU does not agree ambitious climate change targets, other countries are less likely to follow our lead. Similarly, it is widely recognised that if we are to get developing countries to agree to a comprehensive agreement on climate change, they will expect financial compensation and assistance to allow them to adapt to climate change and mitigate its effects. They rightly say that they are not prepared to make commitments on emissions limits if countries such as our own, which have benefited from a period with no limits, are allowed to get away with not providing anything towards the costs of helping countries that have not previously enjoyed economic growth. Those are the essential building blocks of any international agreement on climate change. It is therefore essential that the EU agrees a clear and comprehensive position and takes it forward to the negotiations leading up to Copenhagen. Unfortunately, the signs are that so far there have been difficulties, to put it mildly, in getting a European agreement on the type and scale of finance that is required for climate change adaptation and mitigation in developing countries. For example, Finance Ministers were unable to reach agreement on a number of occasions and have effectively kicked the decision into touch for the Council of Ministers to discuss this weekend. There are now suggestions that an agreement will not be reached this weekend but will be left for the Swedish presidency to deal with at a later stage. It is widely recognised, of course, that for all sorts of reasons the Czech presidency was unable to take forward the negotiations necessary to reach an agreement on a European position. I strongly urge the Government not to allow this weekend's discussions to finish without an agreement on finance for developing countries for adaptation to, and mitigation of, climate change. It would not be right to leave the matter to negotiations in the next few months under the Swedish presidency, as that would send a bad signal to the rest of the world about the EU's willingness and ability to enter into a widespread and comprehensive agreement on climate change later this year.