PM hits at Tory climate 'doubters'

Gordon Brown today aimed a thinly-veiled barb at senior Tory David Davis, who today attacked the "fixation" of the green movement.

The Prime Minister said he hoped there would be all-party support for climate change negotiations at Copenhagen, "despite doubts expressed from some parts of the Opposition".

Writing in The Independent today, Mr Davis said it was "unsurprising" that more than half the public no longer believed in climate change as it now appeared that the earth had been cooling rather than warming over the past decade.

But Mr Brown said he hoped the US and Europe would agree with the Commonwealth on a $10bn start-up fund to help the poorest countries "immediately move on mitigation and adaptation" to climate change.

At Commons question time, Labour's Roger Berry (Kingswood) said his constituents wanted "speedy action" to deal with global warming - "unlike some senior members opposite".

He asked: "Will you assure the House that you have been doing everything possible so that both developed and developing countries can look to a deal at Copenhagen?"

Mr Brown said: "We are in the happy position of being able to work with the rest of Europe to get a climate change agreement...

"The talks that are taking place now, including at the Commonwealth Conference, are a desire to bring together the richest countries who will have to contribute to a climate change deal financially as well as with bold and ambitious targets and the developing countries who we want to make progress but whom we want to be able to help."

The intermediate targets that major countries were set to propose should be "sufficiently ambitious" to be able to meet the goal of achieving at least a 50% reduction of global emissions by 2050.

He added: "I hope that despite doubts expressed from some parts of the Opposition, that there will be all-party support for that deal."

The Copenhagen conference, which begins on December 7, aims to reach agreement on a number of global measures to tackle climate change, including cutting emissions, reducing deforestation and funding poor countries to cope with rising temperatures.