Keeping Climate Change to the forefront of our minds - Rosie Sharpley

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Thu 15th Oct 2009

Rosie is very concerned about climate change

This week the Liberal Democrats had one of their few allotted opposition days in the House of Commons. On these days the Liberal Democrats are allowed to choose what subjects are debated in the House of Commons. We chose Equitable Life and the 10:10 climate change campaign.

The policyholders of Equitable Life won a case against the Government last week: despite this legal ruling and the finding of the Parliamentary Ombudsman the Government still opposed our motion and we lost by a tiny amount of votes. We also lost the 10:10 vote which only asked the Government to back a 10% cut in carbon emissions on the Parliamentary estate in the next year!

The 10:10 commitment is such a simple bottom up approach involving people at every level yet the Government on one hand and closer to home Surrey County Council on the other could not bring themselves to back it.

Amongst the other important policy debates at our recent Federal Conference the Liberal Democrats updated the energy and environmental policies ahead of the United Nations climate change summit in Copenhagen in December. At this summit we need a global deal that stops dangerous climate change. We believe that when it comes to the future of our planet, our environmental goals need to be led by science and not politics.

The UK Government and the European Union must work harder than ever between now and December to get a deal that has teeth. The Liberal Democrats, with due consideration to science are calling for a global peak of emissions no later than 2015 corresponding to a stabilisation target for CO2 in the atmosphere of no more than 350 parts per million. We appreciate the UK government's move to put a figure (up to £60 billion by 2020) on the financial commitment required by developed countries to support the developing world in adapting to and preventing climate change.

But given the urgent need, we believe it should be more ambitious and be more like a contribution of £100 billion each year of the period 2013-2017 to support immediate action on climate change. The time for talking about it has gone. We need commitment and we need action.