Climate Change

May I say how much the Conservatives welcome this important debate at this important time? We particularly welcome the tone that the Secretary of State has brought to his remarks today. We entirely concur with it and we appreciate the bipartisanship with which he has approached this issue. It is just 31 days until the beginning of the talks in Copenhagen and it is vital that from this debate we send out a clear message that there is complete unity of purpose across the House, and between the agenda that the British Government are pursuing and this House, so that there can be no suggestion that that is in any way at risk in the negotiations. Indeed, there has long been agreement on both sides of the House that climate change poses a real and urgent risk, both to the UK and to the world. Some 20 years ago this week, on 8 November 1989, Mrs. Thatcher addressed the UN General Assembly on the need to tackle climate change. She said:""The work ahead will be long and exacting. We should embark on it hopeful of success, not fearful of failure… We are not the lords, we are the Lord's creatures, the trustees of this planet, charged today with preserving life itself—preserving life with all its mystery and all its wonder. May we all be equal to that task."" I believe that her words will be as relevant in Copenhagen and during the weeks ahead as they were in New York 20 years ago. Let us be under no illusion as to the historic significance of the Copenhagen conference. It may be as pivotal for the 21st century as the Bretton Woods summit was for the arrangements for the second half of the 20th century. Out of that historic gathering came a new internationally agreed order governing the way in which our economies interact with each other. It has, since the second world war, guided the way in which we interact globally and it has left us with institutions that have endured, such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. The Copenhagen agreement must be no less ambitious in its scope, and I hope that it will be no less influential in all our futures in respect of seeing the global shift that we all desire towards a low-carbon economy over the next 40 years. That is why the Secretary of State was right to say that Copenhagen is so much more than just an environmental summit, important though that is. This is about our future national and international security. It is about the future of our national and international economic competitiveness. It is about securing a good future for our children and their children, and about our responsibilities to the poorest and most vulnerable people in the world. My party leader pointed out in a speech last month that if the Himalayan glaciers melt, more than 750 million people will be without sufficient water. We cannot deny that that would have serious consequences for us all in terms of global conflict, mass movements of people and our own national security. I do not believe that anyone here wants to see our atmosphere polluted, our lands rendered uninhabitable, or vulnerable populations denied sufficient food and water. There is something deeply unsettling about the realisation that many of our everyday acts, which we have taken for granted over the years—how we heat and light our homes and how we travel to work—have actively contributed to this grave situation. I am reminded of something that Hayek wrote:""We are ready to accept almost any explanation of the present crisis of our civilisation except one: that the present state of the world may be the result of genuine error on our own part, and that the pursuit of some of our most cherished ideals have apparently produced results utterly different from those which we expected.""