For the first time perhaps since Margaret Thatcher, we will have at the head of the Conservative Party someone who is genuinely an equal match for Tony Blair.

People have got to get used to making low carbon choices. If they have a direct incentive to do so they will think about it. Many times a day you have a choice between a low carbon option and a high carbon option, whether it is at home or at work.

Now is the time to show maximum responsibility. It is not the time to pay off old scores nor for sterile partisan recriminations. It is time to re-establish a climate of calmness and mutual respect.

Unprecedented technological capabilities combined with unlimited human creativity have given us tremendous power to take on intractable problems like poverty, unemployment, disease, and environmental degradation. Our challenge is to translate this extraordinary potential into meaningful change.

Climate change is not an excuse to silence political speech.

It has been shown that public participation can limit powerful interest groups, while competing interests can help find a reasonable balance between development and environmental protection.