---

Climate Change (Political Response)

I say to my hon. Friend, who has led our work on this issue, that it always seemed to me entirely inconsistent for Conservative Members to say on the one hand that they are against expanding Heathrow while saying on the other hand that they are quite happy to have lots more activities in airports elsewhere in the south-east of England. [Interruption.] That is not our policy—absolutely not. If Ministers, civil servants, fellow MPs, local government officers, councillors and all the people in public office used trains rather than planes in this country when they could do—and they set an example, which it is perfectly possible to do in mainland Britain—we would not need the sort of expansion that the Government are now supporting. We have been committed environmentalists since our Liberal Democrat party was formed in 1988, and many of us were committed even before that. Indeed, I remember flagging up the urgency of climate change in a debate with Mrs. Virginia Bottomley, who was the Minister with responsibility for the matter, in 1988. We argue that the policies must always follow the science. We argue that to stabilise greenhouse gas emissions—this is what the intergovernmental panel on climate change has said—global emissions must peak and decline no later than 2015. We are clear—this was also the point made by the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris)—that if we are going to have a sane world, the developed countries will have to give to the developing countries something in the order of £160 billion a year for adaptation and transition. We must continue to reduce our emissions rigorously over the next 10 years and then beyond. We will probably also have to phase out all fossil fuel by 2050. All that has a fantastic cost-benefit, which is an issue that many people do not understand. Emission cuts are cost saving. The argument that money spent now will be money saved later is becoming increasingly influential. The environmental argument is thus also an economic argument, and in straitened times it seems to me to be a very persuasive argument indeed.