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Climate Change (Political Response)

I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from "House" to the end of the Question and add:""welcomes the 10:10 campaign as a motivator of public action to cut carbon dioxide emissions through individual and collective behaviour change; recognises the value of such campaigns to build public support for action by governments to agree an ambitious, effective and fair deal at Copenhagen; further recognises the significant effort made by individuals and organisations to cut their emissions through the 10:10 campaign; supports the Climate Change Act introduced by this Government, the first such legislation in the world, and the system of carbon budgets that enables Britain to set itself on a low carbon pathway; notes that carbon budgets ensure active policies by Whitehall departments and the public sector that deliver long-term sustained emissions reductions not just in 2010 but through to 2022 and beyond; further supports the efforts of local councils to move towards local carbon budgets by signing up to the 10:10 campaign; further welcomes the allocation of up to £20 million for central Government departments to enable them to reduce further and faster carbon dioxide emissions from their operations, estate and transport; and further welcomes the cross-cutting Public Value Programme review of the low carbon potential of the public sector, which will focus on how the sector can achieve transformational financial savings through value-for-money carbon reductions."" In the past few months, I have met Environment Ministers, Finance Ministers and negotiators from about 40 different countries. Everywhere I go, people acknowledge and praise the UK’s global leadership on climate change. So let no one be in any doubt: this Government are making a huge and concerted effort to bring about success in Copenhagen. I am grateful to the Liberal Democrat spokesperson for acknowledging that. Our embassies around the world are engaged in outreach on the issue. Our experts are helping in many countries. Our officials are at every negotiating table. The Prime Minister and Cabinet colleagues are actively contributing to the process, and the Prime Minister has indicated that if it is necessary to secure agreement, he will go in person to achieve it. We have actively pursued ambition within the EU, arguing for a 30 per cent. conditional offer when others thought the recession an excuse for lowering targets. We have held fast to the science, arguing that any deal must put the world on track to keep global average temperature rises within 2° C. We have intervened with proposals to unblock the inevitable logjams that occur in a process that takes two years.