Copenhagen Climate Change Conference

I could not agree more with that assessment. If my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State goes to Copenhagen and tells his colleagues—or tells the Americans or the Chinese before Copenhagen—that he is under constant pressure in the House to do a better deal, that is of great value. I make no apology for sometimes sounding critical of my Government. The criticism should come from all sides. We are not looking for a consensus around motherhood and apple pie. I am looking for a bigger effort. In another example of the Government's candour of late on the issue, in response to my written question about the contribution of Government policy to reductions in CO2 emissions in this country since 1990, I received the reply that the dash for gas contributed 15 per cent. of that reduction, that the change between imports and exports—the fact that more manufacturing takes place in China and we import it back—accounted for about 30 per cent. of the reduction in carbon emissions, and that other factors, of course, also contributed. The written answer stated:""The direct effect of Government policies overlaps with the estimates given above and is likely to have accounted for about 15 per cent."—[Official Report, 13 July 2009; Vol. 496, c. 36W.]" Therefore, between 1990, the baseline year, and today, Government policy—from Governments of both parties, presumably—contributed about 15 per cent. to our reduction in greenhouse gases. In my view, 15 per cent., which is equivalent to the contribution from the dash for gas, is simply not enough. Hopefully, the budgets that have now been published, and the report and statement yesterday, will indicate that we will go well beyond 15 per cent., and I hope that we will be much more interventionist in the markets, and tell them what they have to do—not leave it all to the magical formula called, "Not picking winners", which so far, I think, has managed to pick quite a few losers. The idea that we would aim for higher greenhouse gas emissions cuts if we had a global agreement calls on my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, Ministers and the EU generally to make a big impact on the Americans. I know that we all welcome President Obama's contribution to the debate, and we all welcome the Waxman-Markey Bill, although its headline reduction figure seems lower than that of the Kyoto protocol. However, a recent comment has caused me considerable concern. Todd Stern, who is President Obama's lead envoy for climate change, said in June, during the Mexico talks of the Major Economies Forum,""In our judgment"" the cut proposed by the European Union""is not necessary and not feasible given where we are starting from. So it is not on the cards."" That is an alarming position for us to find ourselves in, particularly now that the Waxman-Markey Bill has left the House of Representatives, having been watered down quite a bit and facing a much tougher battle in the Senate, where the Republicans—in my view, a horrid little core group of far-right extremists when it comes to this subject—will dig their heels in and oppose it every inch of the way. It is unlikely that the United States will come up with a settled piece of legislation in December. It will have one foot in the camp and one foot outside it, and we need to recognise that that could have great consequences for the European Union's higher intended target. Are we really going to proceed with the proposal for 40 per cent. cuts by 2020 if the Americans are promising only 4 per cent.—or, given the other measures in the Waxman-Markey Bill, possibly slightly more? I hope that we shall receive some response to the message that we are sending on behalf of those in the developing world, the people who have given us their carbon emissions free of charge since the industrial revolution. Of course, they may say that they did not give us their emissions, but their emissions were stolen from them. Those people should have an equal voice in Copenhagen. It should not be just the major economies that determine the agenda; the countries in the developing world should have an equal say, because it is their atmosphere as much as ours. If we do not recognise that, we will go horribly wrong, and there will be no agreement worth having in Copenhagen.