There are more than a million British people living in Spain. There are hundreds of thousands of British people living in France. In fact there are tens of thousands of people living in almost every EU country and if we were to pull up the drawbridge on the English Channel, the truth is British people wouldn't be able to come and go because they'd take action against us.

This morning only five countries in Europe had climate targets post 2020, now 28 countries do. It's good for consumers because we can decarbonise at the lowest possible cost using a diverse mix of technologies. And it's good for business as it provides the certainty they have been calling for to unlock billions in low carbon investment.

Of course there will always be uncertainties within climate science and the need for research to continue. But some sections of the press are giving an uncritical campaigning platform to individuals and lobby groups. This is not the serious science of challenging, checking and probing. This is destructive and loudly clamouring scepticism born of vested interest, nimbyism, publicity seeking contraversialism or sheer blinkered, dogmatic, political bloody-mindedness. This tendency will seize upon the normal expression of scientific uncertainty and portray it as proof that all climate change policy is hopelessly misguided. By selectively misreading the evidence, they seek to suggest that climate change has stopped so we can all relax and burn all the dirty fuel we want without a care. Those who argue against all the actions we are taking to reduce emissions, without any serious and viable alternative, are asking us to take a massive gamble with the planet our children will inherit, in the face of all the evidence, against overwhelming odds.

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