Well, there is no linear connection between increases in carbon dioxide levels in the air and temperature records. There are oscillations, and even if you look at the linear regression line in the graphs on the temperature data that we've got, which is itself incomplete in many ways, then you still can't, I think, prove the assertion that you've just made.

That is the key question here, of course: how far increased atmospheric carbon dioxide can be expected to warm the Earth. And this is a very uncertain area of science, not least because clouds have an important role to play, and we don't really fully understand the science of clouds. Indeed, until recently, the majority opinion amongst climate scientists was that clouds greatly amplify the basic greenhouse effect, but there is now a significant minority, including some of the most eminent climate scientists, who strongly dispute that conclusion.

Over millennia, the temperature of the Earth has varied a great deal, long before the arrival of fossil fuels. We had a mediaeval warm period, when temperatures are thought to have been at least as warm, if not warmer, than they are today, and 300 to 400 years ago we had a so-called little ice age, when the River Thames used to freeze over and frost fairs were held upon it. And in the interim period since the 1700s, the Earth has undoubtedly been warming.

I'll just finish on this one reflection. In my statistics paper at Aberystwyth for my first degree, there was a question that said, 'A trend is a trend is a trend. But the question is, will it bend? Will it alter its course through some unforeseen force and come to a premature end? Discuss.' And we are still discussing it today, but now in the context of climate change. So, I congratulate the Government on missing all its targets in such a comprehensive way, and I hope that they'll carry on doing so.