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G8: 2008 Summit

My Lords, further to the question of the noble Lord, Lord Lawson, and since the Statement takes global warming for granted yet again, perhaps I may ask a question which I have asked previously but which has always been treated with something approaching disdain. Do the Government have a plan B if it turns out that any recent warming of the planet was caused almost entirely by the activity of the sun and very little, if at all, by human CO2 emissions? To gauge how seriously the Government may or may not be taking this new scientific theory, supported by a large and growing number of climate scientists, perhaps I may ask whether they have read the regular articles of the redoubtable Mr Christopher Booker in the Sunday Telegraph, which have given some of the theory’s detail? If they have not, will they undertake to do so and meet Mr Booker and his colleagues as appropriate? Of course, I appreciate that fossil fuels are finite and that energy conservation and diversification are in any case good for the soul, but surely policy should change if the planet is cooling down and if humanity is not responsible either way. Could we not at least drop the misguided wind power initiative, about which Mr Booker has also written persuasively? Surely things should change in the Government’s Statement and policy if, as even some of the global warmists admit, the planet is likely to cool for at least the next 12 years.