Energy and Climate Change and Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

I am sure that studies come up with such results, but I do not think that the people who disagree with the science are in the majority; they are a very small minority. There were people who still believed that the earth was flat, but the rest of us did not generally agree with them. At Kyoto, one or two research bodies were found who came up and said that the science is now doubted. The overwhelming opinion now in almost every country is that the science is accurate, however. That is not the same situation as at Kyoto. The right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley) quoted an article in The Guardian. I read the article, and it also made a statement about not detracting from the central argument about the accuracy of the science. Why did he not quote that? Why did he quote only the bits about the university in question, and so forth? [Interruption.] Well, it would be very good if he actually gave us a proper and objective opinion, instead of just selectively quoting from the article, as he did. I shall now return my attention to Lord Lawson. In an article in The Times, he casts doubt on the science, but he also says that he has no idea whether the science is true. He is quite sceptical about it; he produced a book a few years ago making it clear he is sceptical about it. I am bound to say, however, that the fact that he announces this now has the same ring as what happened at Kyoto. Just before people come to the negotiations, they start throwing in all the doubt about the science. Apparently, Lord Lawson is setting up a""high-powered all-party (and non-party) think-tank, the Global Warming Policy Foundation"." Obviously that is designed to feed into the current atmosphere that the science is faulty. It is true, as he suggests, that we are making judgments on the science—all Governments are. He desires "open and reasoned debate" and was very upset about the word "trick" in the e-mail from the university—we would all be concerned about that if the imputation is right, but an inquiry is going on into that. I should say to him that this approach is exactly what we found at Kyoto: people come up with some scientific body that they say has done the research and suggested that the science is not acceptable. I just wondered who is financing this body that Lord Lawson is setting up. We tend to find that such bodies are funded by the oil and coal industry and people like that. So I had a look and found that the Central Europe Trust Ltd is the body that he has set up and his clients are Elf, Total, Shell, BP, Amoco, Texaco—that is a lot of oil companies. From what I can see of it, it is not so much a think-tank as a petrol tank. We must take that point into account, because Lord Lawson used to say a great deal about money from the trade unions influencing the position of the Labour party and about the people paying the piper calling the tune. It is fair to say that as this operation is being financed by the oil companies, we should perhaps look a little suspiciously at it. The right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden may have a future in this, because he knows the oil companies involved. There seems to be a correlation whereby if someone works for oil companies, they happen to be against the science. Saying that is perhaps a bit naughty, but people get suspicious about the conclusions that are being reached. The point I wish to make is that the science is right, and we must act on it. The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change made it clear in his speech what he has to do about that. The important thing is to ensure that there is momentum. To be fair, I should say that the Opposition spokesman mentioned the kind of changes that are under way. The view has always been that there is not going to be any change in Copenhagen, that things will break down and the issue causing the breakdown tends to be emissions. Let us consider what is happening, even in the countries that have been mentioned. South Korea, Japan—it promised things at Kyoto and did not deliver on them, but there is a different party in power there now and its Tories have gone—Brazil, Russia and Australia have all decided that they are going to do something about cutting emissions. That is at the heart of this argument. I was in China last week having discussions with Premier Wen and appealing to him to ensure that the Chinese leadership go to Copenhagen. It was clear from the communiqué that both America and China are considering what further offers they can make on emissions. Of course America faces a difficulty, because it has a constitutional requirement to put things before Congress, but it is nevertheless showing that it might make some judgments about that. China and America are the major emitters, and if they can come to some agreement about emissions, that would represent a major change in the argument. While I was in China addressing a group and a conference—this was paid by me; nobody else pays the money when I go to these countries—people were discussing how they might now move on this. Where do the difficulties lie? The difficulties are whether we recognise the common but differentiated responsibilities and that the bigger burden should fall on the developed countries—clearly it should—whether we believe there should be an audit if a policy is carried out and whether there will be a timetable on such an audit. Those are very real questions and the Chinese are now discussing how we can achieve progress on them. To that extent, we are getting considerably more movement than we could have expected normally.