Copenhagen Climate Change Conference

Obviously it is for the Opposition to speak for themselves, but my hon. Friend makes an important point, which I will come to in a moment. We need to ensure that the resources that we put into climate change finance are not simply taken from existing finance for poverty reduction, although I will come to that in a moment. Developing countries have an important role to play. Studies have suggested that by 2020 they need to show a deviation from what we would otherwise expect them to do—that is, from what one might call "business as usual" and continuing to emit at current rates—of 15 to 30 per cent. That is an important part of the challenge that we face between now and Copenhagen. The second challenge—this touches on the point that my hon. Friend made—is on the finance and the financial architecture of a global deal. There is no question but that that is one of the most difficult issues that we face in Copenhagen. Developed countries are hard pressed financially and resources will obviously be hard to come by. At the same time, however, on the basis of historical responsibility for emissions, there is no question but that developed countries bear responsibility for the emissions in the atmosphere—cumulatively, between 1850 and 2000, about 30 per cent. of global emissions came from the United States, about 30 per cent. came from the EU and 6 per cent. came from China. Per capita emissions in developed countries are still significantly higher than in developing countries, and obviously the development needs of developing countries are significantly higher as well. That is why the Prime Minister made the speech that he did a couple of weeks ago, when he suggested—he was the first world leader to suggest this—that we should have a working figure for how much money we are seeking to raise, namely $100 billion by 2020. He also said that it should come from private and public financial sources—from the global carbon market and public sources—and that we needed new sources of finance, in addition to official development assistance. We are attracted by various proposals, including from Norway and Mexico, and importantly—this comes back to the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, North (Barry Gardiner) made—we should limit the ODA used to 10 per cent., so that we do not simply divert it away from poverty relief. That is a very important point in commanding the confidence of developing countries in the negotiations. I urge those in all parts of the House, including the official Opposition, to think hard about that. They published a document earlier this week looking at overseas development, but it was not explicit on that point, so I hope that when the hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark) responds he can say something about their attitude, because it would send a bad signal if it looked like we were simply going to transfer money wholesale from ODA to climate finance.