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Climate Change: Copenhagen Conference

I am grateful to my noble friend and pay tribute to him and the Environment Agency for their work in this important area. I well understand that he is disappointed by the outcome of the discussions in Copenhagen. As I have intimated, the Government, too, are disappointed by the outcome. The noble Lord is also right to say that we should not throw up our hands in horror and say that we should reverse all our policies. We should not ignore two facts. First, the accord contains some important gains; it was very important that we put these in the bag. Secondly, several significant offers were made by both developed and developing countries in the lead-up to Copenhagen. We must hope that they translate themselves into the commitments that are made by those countries that agreed to the accord at the end of this month. My understanding is that the analysis of the noble Lord, Lord Stern, shows that if you combine the impact of those offers, particularly the highly ambitious end of them, you are within striking distance of what is required by 2020 in terms of meeting the 2-degree Celsius target. Of course, there can be no room for complacency. I agree with my noble friend that we should do everything we can to encourage a legally binding agreement. By the end of the year we will very much engage with the Mexicans, who will be responsible for overseeing COP 16 towards the end of 2010. I repeated in the Statement the intention of the German Government to host a ministerial meeting. UN negotiators and negotiators from the relevant countries will also meet in Germany in the summer. We will do everything we can to reach the outcome the noble Lord has suggested.