Greeny News

He said hardliners on both sides should reflect on the consequences of adopting such strident stances. "I think the broad base of sound scientific opinion, of sensible and respected science, supports urgent climate action," he said to sceptics who question the need for action. "Of course science is constantly evolving. The notion that you need to have 100% certainty on any given issue is unhelpful anyway. Acting now on climate is the prudent sensible thing to do."

Hopefully that will have shaken us out of that slight complacency that the climate establishment had wandered into. I do not underestimate for a second that all of us who are passionate about finding urgent solutions to the global issues have got a big job to do and need to be incredibly responsible at the COP [UN Conference of the Parties climate change negotiations in Durban later] this year."

There was a clear explanation why sceptics are more likely to be found in his party, he said. "The climate debate, which was started by Margaret Thatcher who was the first world leader to call for concerted action on man-made climate change, was subsequently almost hijacked by the centre left," Barker said.

Climate change minister believes that he could make enough credibility with the green lobby clear that the government keen to do is place for "energy-intensive users" as the steel and aluminum industries built.

"The big change in thinking on climate change policy is a recognition that we need to balance our economy. Decarbonization But should not imply de-industrialization," he said. "On the contrary, we actually need an economy that has further advanced manufacturing, where we simply reduce our carbon emissions by things offshore to less regulated markets and actually see the energy challenge of the next two decades as a stop to see a real opportunity to build more advanced manufacturing here in the UK, the less able and forward to a successful advanced economies such as Germany as the way forward rather than thinking we are just more dependent on the services sector. "