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Climate Change

No, I must make some progress. Therefore, we must look at the practicalities. We all know young people of 18, 19, 20 or 21 who are flying off to stag nights and weekend trips to Berlin. They are taking their gap year in countries such as Thailand, Australia or the States. Good luck to them, I say. Those opportunities were not so available for my generation because there were no low-cost airlines. However, those are all massively CO2 producing activities undertaken by the next generation who will cop for this and the effects of climate change. I agree with the hon. Member for Chichester that some of the stuff that gets talked about on emissions is gesture politics. To talk about 80 per cent. is gesture politics. There is nary a Member in either House who will be an active politician in 2050. I think that the youngest is the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson), who is 28. She might be an active politician then, but she is about the only one. It is easier for people to say that we will go for an 80 per cent. rather than a 60 per cent. cut. It is gesture politics and we need to be doing much more about adaptation. The Government are slowly starting to deal with adaptation. I do not have time to go into all of the replies that I received when I sent a written question to every Department except for the Northern Ireland and Scotland Offices, because of the devolved stuff. I asked them what they were doing about adapting to climate change. Some are doing a bit of stuff and some are doing nothing. I tabled a question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and I received a written reply from my hon. Friend the Minister on 6 December. It said:"““Defra is also leading on the development of a cross-Government Adaptation Policy Framework to be published in the Spring.””—[Official Report, 6 December 2007; Vol. 468, c. 1411W.]" I think that means spring 2008, which is good. But 2008 is now and we are just starting to have a cross-Government adaptation policy framework. We have been talking about climate change for years and years. It is now 42 years until 2050, which is the 60 per cent. deadline. I have been aware of this issue for the last 34 years. I learned about greenhouse gases at university. In those 34 years emissions from around the world, including from this country, have gone up massively, not down. That is why we need to do so much more about adaptation. I mention briefly in passing that there are other institutions doing rather more than the Government. I urge on my hon. Friend the Minister a little faster progress co-ordinated across Government on adaptation to the effects of climate change. She should listen to the Association of British Insurers, the Woodland Trust, the Wildlife Trust, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, the Marine Climate Change Impacts Partnership and the British Beekeepers Association. She should also listen to the Met Office, the Environment Agency and the European Union Commission itself, which produced a very helpful document on adapting to climate change on 29 June 2007.