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Climate Change

To some extent, I agree with the hon. Gentleman. The international discussions are cost free, but there is a huge cost to not having them and to failing to have international agreement. The Government are acutely aware that they must continue to try to build international action through agreement. Emissions in the world have gone up massively since 1990. For example, the figures for cars in the UK are slightly out of date, but a reply to a parliamentary answer in February 2006 said that between 1997 and 2005, the average CO2 emissions per kilometre of new vehicles sold in the United Kingdom—I do not think that that covers the commercial sector—went down by 1.2 per cent. per year. Despite all the publicity that we had, the emissions went down by only 1.2 per cent. a year. Between 2000 and 2006, which were the latest figures I could get, per capita—not overall—CO2 emissions in the United Kingdom increased. While the Government have shown a lot of international leadership, people living in the United Kingdom are not as seized of this issue as the Government are in terms of changing their day-to-day activities as regards emissions.