Energy and Climate Change and Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

That is an interesting point because each industrial country, as it begins to grow, has to get its resources. Every European country—Britain, France and Germany—went through its industrial development but we sent in troops and got the resources by conquest. It was called colonialism. The Chinese are going in and negotiating contracts. I happen to think that that sounds a more harmonious way to do it than the murder that we were involved in when we raped these countries of their resources. We should take a balanced view and not forget our own history, and we should not lecture them too much. We do not have sufficient resources for the massive amount of growth that will take place in this world. Inequality between the north and the south—it is the rich countries that did the pollution—is growing and Copenhagen must recognise social injustice. Two thirds of the world are poor and do not have the growth that we have, so any Copenhagen agreement had better find a way of introducing better social equity. That is what we have been doing in the Council of Europe, where I am the rapporteur, and I shall be at Copenhagen. It is important that we get greater transparency. In my last speech, I said that we should be measuring the problem by gigatonnes instead of by emissions. Measuring emissions is fancy dancing by Europe, basically—people do not know what they are doing, but it looks as if they are doing something. The real point is whether the southern world will get a better chance of growth. When we measure by gigatonnes, we find that the figure per head in America is 20 gigatonnes, in Africa it is 1 gigatonne and in Europe it is 12 gigatonnes. If we begin to set a good example and consider how we can get fairness and equity into the system, that is how we will achieve results in Copenhagen. We have to be very clear about trying to create social justice. I believe that we are on the way to some agreement. It will not be a matter of the dotting the i's and crossing the t's, but of finding a political framework that we can offer. There must be a timetable to it, and Mr. de Boer of the UN made that absolutely clear. He said that the political agreement at Copenhagen has to set out essential principles: first, it must focus on what is realistic and concentrate on the politics of achieving that; and it should get climate change and emissions targets that countries should agree with. I think that is crucial. There is another factor to consider if we are to get the framework right, which I believe that we can do—we are moving in that direction. On this point, the Government are showing the leadership that they have always shown and as they showed on achieving the Kyoto targets. Leaders must go to Copenhagen. When our Prime Minister said that he was going, he gave a lead. We now have 60 countries going. I appealed to Premier Wen only last week that China must be represented. We decided at the Council of Europe meeting in Paris this week that we will write to India, China and America. The leaders of those three countries must go to Copenhagen, because at the end of the day, as was the case with Kyoto, it is the leaders who decide. It will be a political fix—whether we like it or not. Their involvement is useful because nobody wants to be accused of breaking the agreement. We need to shove them all in the same room and tell them, "If you really mean it about change, if you are talking about our children and their children, and if you are going to make effective change, you can sit in that damn room and come to an agreement. We won't let you out before that." That happened at Kyoto. Many things are being repeated from Kyoto, but we have a moral obligation to achieve an agreement. Let me make one point that we can learn from. In the 19th century, we spent all our time in mass production. In the 20th century, that became mass consumption. We must learn to have mass sustainability in this century. That is the only key. The decisions are difficult; we must carry the great burden and we should recognise the need for social justice. Countries want to lift their people out of poverty, like we have done, and we should play our part in producing the low-carbon economy to achieve that. Copenhagen will be judged on the social justice embodied in it, and within a financial framework. I am looking forward to that debate, but I hope that I will have the key to the door so that I do not let the buggers out until they have done a deal.