Article For Folkestone Herald and Kentish Express

7 July 2005

Live 8 was spectacular and moving. It is a test of the extent to which world leaders will listen and respond to the views of the people they represent.

This week’s meeting of world leaders presents them with the opportunity to make progress. We shall soon know whether they have taken it.

They face a number of challenges.

First is the need to respond to the cries of the world’s poor. They share our planet with us. We cannot and should not ignore their plight.

So eliminating debt, increasing aid and, above all, making trade freer and fairer are all necessary. So is the need for good governance in the countries concerned.

Trade is especially important. The World Trade Organisation, which now regulates the rules of trade, should help developing countries. But all too often they lack the expertise and resource to make the most of this possibility. That is why I have suggested the establishment of an advocacy fund, paid for by the developed countries, which would help developing countries to pay for the experts who could advise them to argue their case.

Unfortunately, the Prime Minister has rejected this proposal to my great regret.

The other great challenge facing world leaders is climate change. Regular readers will know that I have long championed the need to take action to deal with one of the greatest, and perhaps the greatest, threat facing our planet. As long ago as 1992, when I was Environment Secretary, I was sent to Washington to persuade the administration of President George Bush Snr to sign the Climate Change Convention and attend the Earth Summit in Rio. I succeeded and hope that there is similar success in persuading the current American administration to take meaningful action. We would be in a stronger position to do so if our own record was better. Carbon emissions, which were falling before 1997, have been increasing since. Action needs to be taken at home as well as abroad.

I don’t know whether global warming is responsible for our dry winter and the applications made this week by the Folkestone and Dover Water Company and Southern Water. These applications raise many questions. Why are they necessary? Why haven’t the companies taken action before now to deal with them? What safeguards should be put in place if their applications succeed?

I shall be asking these questions. My attitude to the applications will depend on the answers I get.