MADAM - I refer to Steven Tilley’s letter (January 7, 2015) and am very happy to answer his questions in the same order: 1. Do you believe that climate change is real?

Yes, most definitely.

The climate has changed continuously and warmed gradually since the ‘Little Ice Age’ (LIA), thank goodness.

(The Little Ice Age ended in the latter half of the nineteenth century or early in the twentieth century).

2. Do you believe that climate change is totally caused by human activity, totally caused by natural climatic and weather patterns or a mixture of the two?

A mixture of the two, but as the current 18-year time period shows, human influences are minor, with raised levels of CO2 over the past 20 years than in the preceding 20-year period.

There has been no temperature increase significantly more than zero for the past 18 years.

It is to be remembered that vegetation is absorbing additional carbon dioxide in any event.

In fact, research just released shows that tropical rainforests are growing much faster due to carbon emissions.

It is worth noting that rainforest clearing is responsible for about 75 per cent of Brazil’s emissions as vegetation is burned and felled trees rot.

3. Do you believe that we should take steps to mitigate this climate change?

The UK produces less than two per cent of the entire world’s CO2 emissions.

Even if CO2 had much influence, we could not make any difference since China has another 300+ coal-fired power stations in the pipeline and India 400+.

Germany has ten under construction.

The World Resources Institute website provides details of proposed coal-fire power stations by installed capacity.

The direct link is: http://www.wri.org/tools/coalmap/ Moving the cursor over the world map using this link gives the planned coal-fired power plants and the planned GW installed capacity for each country.

More than 98 per cent of the world’s CO2 emissions are therefore not produced in this country.

Caroline Stephens

UKIP Parliamentary Candidate Stroud

Chairman UKIP Stroud branch