I congratulate my hon. Friend Duncan Hames on securing the debate and making it happen. This is a critical issue. Like other hon. Members, I would have preferred to see more people in the Chamber, but it is up to us to promote the problem of climate change and to excite people's interest in the subject. It is also up to us to come up with ideas and solutions that bring about the scale of interest that we undoubtedly need. The truth is that, even if we did just a little better than we have done thus far, we would still be facing a worsening situation in terms of CO2 output. That is the reality. We need to embark upon a huge set of policy initiatives if we are to see a significant degree of improvement.

We have been talking about Cancun, but let us talk briefly about Copenhagen and why nothing happened there. The real reason nothing happened was that the United States and China got together and decided that nothing much should happen. The first and most important lesson for all of us in this room and beyond to learn is that Europe has huge responsibilities and a range of opportunities to influence the debate. Europe must play its part in a significant and resolute way if we are to start to secure the kind of agreements that are necessary. I hope that Britain plays a powerful role at Cancun, but we must also engineer a strong European voice; otherwise the same sort of thing will happen.

Related to that, but just as important, is the role of the BRIC-Brazil, Russia, India and China-economies as emerging economies. It is not just a matter of what China and the United States are doing; it is about what those four economies do next. We must encourage them to pursue policies that are CO2-responsible. For example, there is evidence that technology we have in my Stroud constituency is being exported to Brazil and elsewhere. It is critical to encourage such a relationship at national level, as well.

May I address some of the issues raised? My hon. Friend Zac Goldsmith talked about fossil fuels and the fact that they are subsidised in countries where we should not be subsidising them at all. Instead, we should be encouraging the right kind of technology. That is an opportunity for us and a necessity for those countries. I urge the Government to think carefully about that. The Government should not simply say that subsidising fossil fuels is bad; they should start to think about what is good for the economy as a whole. We need to promote that strong message.

Given the constituency of Dr Whitehead, it was interesting that he talked about shipping and aviation. It is true that both shipping and aviation produce emissions that are damaging. However, we must get the proportion and scale right, because some 90% of trade is actually shipped. We must bear in mind that if we do not ship certain things and decide to produce them here, it could do more damage in terms of CO2. We should not worry too much about shipping. We must get the proportion and our understanding of the questions of transport versus production exactly right. Talking about aviation taxes is not necessarily the right thing to do at this point, because I understand that aviation accounts for just 2% of emissions. It is much better to strike at the very heart of the problem and deal with the big issues that really matter: energy production and domestic transport.