Climate Change: Cancun

Lord Prescott Excerpts

Monday 13th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Marland]

I thank the right reverend Prelate for that. Unfortunately, I do not have my charts in front of me, but I would be happy to provide him with some of the analysis to answer that question. I thank the Church of England for the example that it has set through step change in driving the church towards nil carbon emissions in the near future. Again, that is leading by example.

[Lord Prescott]

I attended the Kyoto conference and those at Cancun and Copenhagen. The atmosphere and organisation was fundamentally different, for which we offer our congratulations to the Mexican Government. However, the Minister may recall that in a debate in this House on climate change I put forward my concerns that the Prime Minister had said that he wanted a legal agreement at Cancun. I did not think that that was possible and announced the five or six principles that I thought were important to finding agreement based on a voluntary agreement and not the legal framework. I must say that the Government have achieved that and, perhaps for the first time in my life, I offer a little congratulation to the Government and the Secretary of State, Mr Huhne, to whom I explained my plan on the aeroplane.

However, I am a little concerned about the Statement when it talks about ambition and cuts of 30 per cent et cetera in carbon. Ambition can be the defeat of the good. I worry about the Durban conference and that we may make the mistake that we made at Copenhagen; namely, that we get far too ambitious in our demands. Therefore, for the South African conference, I fear that 12 months will not be sufficient to deal with all these detailed negotiations that took four years after Kyoto. Will the Minister consider and express within the European Union the view that we are thinking of stopping the clock on the 2012 date set for Kyoto in order that South Africa and Durban does not appear to be a failure as occurred at Copenhagen?

[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.