News

Climate change is happening, its real, and its man-made and that’s why people across the constituency of Dover and Deal have been talking to me about this important issue, worried about what kind of planet we are going to leave for our children and our grandchildren.

I've been listening to my constituent’s opinions on climate change and I've told Ed Miliband, the Secretary of State what people in our area are saying. We want our government to lead the way and sign an ambitious deal at the Summit because the consequences of doing otherwise would be disastrous.

More than 180 countries have joined the United Nations meeting in Copenhagen to thrash out a new international deal to tackle climate change. The stakes could not be higher because we will all be affected by global warming.

We are already experiencing extreme weather like the record breaking heat-wave of 2003 which killed 35,000 people in Europe. Then there is the threat of the sea level rising causing severe flooding across the world and in Asia we could see 94 million people left homeless, leading to large-scale global immigration

We are already witnessing the melting of the glaciers but experts say they could shrink by up to 60%, the rivers they feed would dry up and cut off drinking water supplies for a sixth of the world’s population.

We are told that drought in parts of Africa could halve the size of annual harvests in the next ten years and up to a third of all the known plant and animal species will be at risk of extinction with entire natural environments – like coral reefs and rainforests – coming under threat.

It really is make or break time for our climate as we join every other country at crunch negotiations in Copenhagen this week. The science shows that global warming is a particular problem for poor countries but better off areas like the UK will not escape the impact.

I’m proud that our Labour Government is leading the world in pushing for an ambitious deal – limiting warming to 2 degrees, by making sure global greenhouse gas emissions peak and start to reduce by 2020.

The deal must be effective – so that every country keeps to their word and strong monitoring is in place which includes reporting and verification. And the agreement must be a fair one – with support the poorest countries to cut their emissions and adapt to climate change.

I have also had representations from the local branch of Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and other locally based environmental groups. They all know that if we do act now to tackle climate change, we won’t just avoid disaster, but we can build a cleaner safer Britain with new jobs and opportunities for business and if the Copenhagen is a success we will be able to look forward to building a cleaner safer planet for future generations – now that really is something worth campaigning for.