Tory Euro Confusion on Climate Change

12.00.00am GMT Wed 7th Nov 2007

Chris Huhne has slammed David Cameron's green credentials after David Cameron's meeting with Czech President and climate sceptic Vaclav Klaus.

Vaclav Klaus recently published a book called "A Blue, not Green, Planet" which denounces concern about climate change as an "hysteria" that poses as big a threat to freedom as communism once did.

In an article in the Financial Times on 13 June 2007 he wrote: "I see the biggest threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy and prosperity now in ambitious environmentalism, not in communism."

Liberal Democrat Shadow Environment Secretary, Chris Huhne, said:

"David Cameron's alliance with Vaclav Klaus' party shows how shallow his credentials to tackle climate change are.

"Cameron has failed to build the important partnership with green Christian Democrat leaders like Angela Merkel, while striking poses with a Czech conservative who denies the need to tackle climate change at all.

"Nothing could underline better the Tories abject confusion about using Europe as a key tool in the fight against climate change."