Climate Change

The Climate Change emergency is one of the most important long-term challenges facing us all. That’s why I welcomed, and was delighted to be able to speak in last week’s debate and get the chance to highlight the importance of the issue and the need for us all to work together—across party, across generations and across both Houses in the interests of the next generation.

Having founded one of the UK's first-ever clean-tech consultancies and worked for fifteen years helping finance new green technology before coming to Parliament, and as an MP having worked in the Department for Energy and Climate Change as well as Life Sciences Minister, I am absolutely committed to this. It is important that we all agree that there is an environmental emergency in the world - and that we send the message to the next generation that we get it, and that the timing is sensitive – and not just talking, but implementing real change. Good environmental stewardship and policy is central to good one-nation conservatism.

In my speech I made two key points:

1. Having led the Industrial and Agricultural Revolutions which have, over the last 200 years, drastically accelerated global CO2 emissions and a loss of wild habitats, the UK has a moral and political duty to help today’s developing world achieve clean, low carbon growth without the same damages

2. While it is essential to tackle this, it is also vital that we do not pursue it in an anti-business spirit, but instead harness the power of the market through innovation, science and good business to help us solve these problems.

To see my full speech from the debate, please see the video below, as well as the Hansard text here