John Prescott’s Daily Copenhagen Vlog – stay in touch with the VideoList

By Alex Smith / @alexsmith1982

John Prescott, who is at the Copenhagen summit in his role as the Council of Europe’s Rapporteur on Climate Change, is keeping a daily Vlog of his work – the first installments of which can be found below.

Recently dubbed the UK’s Al Gore, Prescott was the EU’s negotiator at the UN Climate Change Convention at Kyoto in 1997 and is pushing for a deal in Copenhagen in difficult circumstances as part of his New Earth Deal campaign for developing countries.

But he isn’t overly optimistic about the chances of securing a legally binding climate deal this time round. In August he said a deal would be ten times more difficult to achieve than it was in 1997 and that the best he hoped for was to secure a political agreement.

But he said:

“Getting agreement with China and the US – the world’s biggest emitters – is going to be key. In fact, there’ll be three main things to come out of Copenhagen. Firstly, there will be emissions cuts and energy intensity targets for China and India. Secondly, there will be a political agreement. And thirdly, the agreement will be tied to timetable to turn it into a legally binding treaty, ideally within six months.”

You can keep track of these videos and others – and comment on each individually – via the LabourList VideoList which is also accessible via the LiveList on the frontpage.