---

Climate Change: Copenhagen Conference

My Lords, the noble Lord speaks with great authority in cautioning me about being overoptimistic about reform of UN institutions. I very much take that point. None the less, the experience at Copenhagen has clearly concentrated minds. We should not dissuade the UN Secretary-General from at least looking at the issues and seeking to make changes. We must hope that processes will be put in place at Mexico that will allow decisions to be made in a more realistic environment. The G20 countries will be important in that regard and I do not seek to underestimate the role that those groupings can play. The noble Lord is absolutely right about monitoring, reporting and verification. It is very important that we have institutions of integrity that are transparent and can command confidence—I have no doubt about that. However, it is important to acknowledge that in the Copenhagen accord we are for the first time seeing developed as well as developing countries subject to monitoring, reporting and verification. I have not sought to be overoptimistic. The Statement that I repeated made clear our disappointment. I share the view of the noble Lord, Lord Smith, that if we are overpessimistic about what has been achieved, there is a risk that people will think that we simply cannot succeed. We must take what came out of the accord, build on that and redouble our efforts over the next few months.