Climate Change: Cancun

Debate between Lord Howard of Lympne and Lord Marland

Monday 13th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Marland]

No one has done more for these conferences than the noble Lord, Lord Prescott. In fact, the Secretary of State has told me of the pleasant fireside chat that he had with the noble Lord in Cancun. I do not think that “fireside” is the right word—perhaps it should be “poolside”. The noble Lord is absolutely right to send a note of caution. He has been at the forefront of negotiations for a long time. He has understood that this has to be slowly, slowly, despite the fact that we want to go quickly. However, I go back to what I said. We must set high standards for ourselves if others are to follow. I do not think that he would disagree with that.

[Lord Howard of Lympne]

My Lords—

[Lord Howard of Lympne]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend and the Government on their Statement. As someone who had the honour of representing the Government at the first earth summit in Rio in 1992, I well recollect how difficult these conferences can be. Now that the momentum lost at Copenhagen has to some extent been resumed as a result of the efforts which my noble friend has described, will he tell us a little more about what our Government, together with our partners in the European Union, intend to do between now and the Durban conference in order to maintain that momentum?

[Lord Marland]

Again, I should like to pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Howard who was instrumental in persuading the Americans to come on board in Rio in 1992 and has great experience of these matters. As he rightly knows—he would have learnt this at Rio—and as we have heard since, it is our determination, working with the EU, to show real leadership in this and to press hard to turn what is a loose but generally agreeable statement into something practical. We should not set high expectations for ourselves to be ratified in legal language by Durban, but ensure that the transparency issues, which are critical to this agreement, the production and announcement of the transparency and how the targets being set by each country are established, are held up to public attention.