Durban Climate Change Conference

Andrew George Excerpts

Monday 12th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Chris Huhne]

Let me answer the last part of that question first. The most encouraging thing is that we dealt with both time periods. There is a clear commitment to dealing with a single over-arching global agreement from 2020, but there is also a clear set of procedures—admittedly, there are no numbers yet—for addressing the emissions gap from now through to 2020, so the process will not stop in 2015. We have achieved great progress in getting real action. The contrast is often noted between Canada, which is a signatory to Kyoto protocol but is busting all its targets, and China, which is not bound on emissions but is doing an awful lot. We are able to do an awful lot and that is very important.

Adaptation is key and yes, that will be essential to the efforts of the green climate fund, particularly the public funding. It is much more difficult to get private funding for adaptation measures—that is much easier on the mitigation side. I expect that the publicly funded aspect will be higher than 50%. I draw the hon. Gentleman’s attention to the recent OECD report, which found that our existing commitments on and support for adaptation measures were among the best, and that will continue.

[Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)]

Notwithstanding the answer that my right hon. Friend gave the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint), what lessons can we take from the conference when negotiating international agreements? Does he believe that the UK’s contribution to this welcome outcome would have been made easier or more difficult had we adopted an isolationist posture?