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Climate Change

This has been an important debate and it has been evident from the speeches made that there is a lot of common ground. The Government certainly want to go further, faster and deeper. The scientific evidence of climate change is overwhelming. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said, the debate about global warming is over. The only real questions as far as I am concerned are how quickly it is happening and what are we going to do about it. The 10 warmest years in our history since records began have all occurred since 1990. In July, most parts of the UK experienced the hottest month that they had ever seen. Just last month was the warmest September in Birmingham since the 18th century. In 2003, the heat wave across Europe cost about 30,000 lives. The general consensus of scientific opinion is that if we do not tackle climate change, those temperatures will be the norm by 2050, and it might be the case that it will never get that cold during the summer by 2080. The latest assessment of the intergovernmental panel on climate change, which is in the process of being revised, predicts that the average rise in temperature from 1990 levels will be between 1.4 and 5.8° C by the end of this century. Even at the bottom of that range—round about 2° C—it is likely that 95 per cent. of the great barrier reef will disappear and that millions of people will suffer flooding, most of whom will be in the developing world. It is clear that there is an urgent need to tackle climate change. I welcome Conservative and Liberal Democrat Members’ acknowledgement of the role of the Prime Minister and the Government in trying to lead international opinion on developing a post-Kyoto consensus on climate change. I accept that we have a moral responsibility to lead on the matter and we are doing just that. Last week in Monterrey, Mexico, we helped to take the debate forward. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State made a major contribution there that followed on from our decision to put climate change at the top of our agenda during our presidencies of the G8 and the European Union. Key discussions took place at Monterrey. The Stern review, which will be published shortly, will clearly show that the costs of dealing with climate change will be far less than those of dealing with its consequences. The International Energy Agency, with its international energy perspectives, shows that the technologies exist and can be developed for the future. The World Bank is showing through its plans for an energy investment framework that, if we have the political will globally, we can provide funding to ensure that low-carbon technologies are adopted throughout the developing world, which will be crucial if we are to move towards a low-carbon world.