I think the wonderment of seeing my two sons developing makes me incredibly optimistic about human potential. It makes you think: 'My goodness. It's a miracle that's going on here. What could the human race do together?'

What's now urgently needed [to stop environmental disaster] is the international political commitment to take action to avoid dangerous climate change.

Thirty years ago, if you said the country was living beyond its means, people would have thought about economics. Now, if you talk about the country, or the planet living beyond its means, you think about the environment. We are taking out more than we are giving back. We are consuming energy, water, and other natural resources in a way that is leading to huge and often irreversible damage to the planet. So too are most other developed nations. And so too will China and India if they follow the same path of economic development as us

The biggest opportunity in 2013 is in Africa. It has seven out of the ten fastest-growing economies in the world. In Nigeria alone there are 100 million people with mobile phones. In total, 300 million Africans - five times the population of Britain - are in the middle class.

We know from history that the way wars are concluded is absolutely the key to whether or not there is any peace to be kept.

In the future, every industry should be an environmental industry. In a world where energy and carbon emissions are constrained, every business must take resource productivity seriously

I've committed myself to serve my constituents in South Shields and I have committed myself to British politics.