Climate Change

I wish that we come back from Copenhagen with a significant agreement, but whatever enthusiasm, skill and energy our delegation demonstrates there—I will be there watching and cheering them on—they cannot do it on their own. That is the nub of the problem. That is not only why we need an international agreement if we are to achieve any success in combating climate change, but why it is extremely difficult to do so. We have watched a sort of stately gavotte in climate change negotiations for years, going round and round in circles, producing very little. We have not even had a legally binding agreement up to now. Kyoto was not an effective, legally binding agreement, and there has been no question of compliance action for countries failing their Kyoto obligations. If we get a legally binding agreement out of Copenhagen, it will be a tremendous first for the planet. However, we have already had to accept the fact that, for reasons totally beyond the control of the British Government, a binding legal agreement is completely unlikely. That can happen only with the enthusiastic endorsement of the US Administration, who have been the stumbling block of climate change negotiations for the past 10 years. Although the Bush Administration have moved on and been replaced by an enlightened Administration under Obama, he is leading a country in which the debate on climate change is 10 or 20 years behind that of the rest of the world. The right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley) may pour scorn on public concern about climate change and support for action against climate change in the UK, but compared with America, that concern and support is pretty good.