This step in the right direction is very much for all of those climate activists who did everything they could to say enough is enough we need to act. From those who went on strike from school to those who protested on the streets of London, you helped put the pressure on government to make this move.

I also paid tribute in my speech to  Ed Miliband  who took the 2008 Climate Change Act through parliament as the then Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change. Ed added a clause to that act so that targets could be changed more easily in the face of new scientific evidence which is what the Government have now done.

This is however only a first step. Currently government policies are not sufficient to meet carbon budgets designed for the earlier target of 80% carbon reduction. I invited the Minister to sit down with us to come up with a raft of policies that would get our current carbon budgets back on track.

I also urged the Minister to urgently proceed not only with plans for low carbon energies but for negative carbon policies such as radical afforestation which will be needed to reach our net zero target.

We now have the targets but together we need to work to make sure that we have the policies that will enable us to meet those targets and deal with the very real climate emergency we have on our hands.