Copenhagen Climate Change Conference

I do not think that there is any disagreement between us. Additional resources for climate change are needed, and we should not divert money from important programmes in our aid budget. Taking action to show that we can implement the commitments is an important test of our good faith if we are to argue for them around the world. If continue to fail to live up to the ambitious targets we have set ourselves, we are in a poor position to bring other countries on board. That is why yesterday's discussion in the House was so important. We will continue to press the Government for more urgent, comprehensive and tangible action domestically. I am reminded of a speech delivered by John F. Kennedy in 1963 on the subject of peace which in itself changed the course of the cold war. Before the United States could credibly call on the Soviet Union to reform its attitude to human rights and aggression around the world, the President argued, American citizens needed first to examine their own attitudes to peace and freedom in their country. Only when all American citizens lived with full equal rights and without fear of violence in their own country, the President said, would the United States have the moral authority to call on other countries to reform their behaviour. So it must be for us: if we are to have the moral authority truly to lead in Copenhagen, it must be by example as well as by exhortation.