Graham's response to climate chnage denier Giles Chichester

12.00.00am GMT Fri 11th Dec 2009

"Giles Chichester's comments on climate change come as no surprise to me, and are in line with many other Tories. They are further proof that the Tories have not changed, despite David Cameron's best efforts to give the "Nasty Party" a makeover.

"I am sure it will worry the 81% of people who want to see the EU take the lead on climate change that I am the only South West MEP to campaign for action on climate change.

"The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a UN body of scientists that evaluates hundreds of official and varied reports from around the world. They have concluded that there is a 90% chance that humans are causing climate change.

"There is a 10% chance that "global warming partisans" like myself are wrong. But as one of my Lib Dem colleagues recently asked, what would you do if the pilot of a plane you were about to board announced that it had a fault, and there was a 90% it would crash?

"Giles Chichester would apparently get on the plane and think about it as they took off.

"He wants to stall by demanding more discussion and debate, but we have had 40 years of this. Now is the time for action. If we do not act now, catastrophic climate will be unavoidable.

"There will be 1bn climate refugees by 2050, vicious wars over resources and wild weather extremes causing overwhelming floods and misery in places like Exmouth. I am disappointed that Giles cannot see this and that his views contradict the many hundreds of constituents who have contacted me over the past year.

"I hope Giles is as concerned as I that, when it comes to climate change, his views are remarkably similar to Nick Griffin's, who is flying the flag for "flat-earthers" in Copenhagen"

Graham will be attending the Copenhagen Conference from Sunday 13 December to Wednesday 17 December, as Chairman of the e-Parliament (www.e-parl.net).

He will be reporting back to his constituents through his website and an emailed newsletter; to sign up for this, email euro_office@cix.co.uk.