The question about climate change is no longer whether it is real. The question is what the world is going to look like for our children as they grow up. I have a three-year-old son, and, when he is my age, he could be living in a world that is completely different from ours, largely because of climate change.

Despite the global community's best intentions to keep global warming below a 2C increase from the pre-industrial climate, higher levels of warming are increasingly likely. Scientists agree that countries' current emission pledges and commitments under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change would most likely result in 3.5-4C warming. And the longer those pledges remain unmet, the more likely it is that we will be living in a world that is four degrees warmer by the end of this century.

BP met its day of reckoning in the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster on Thursday when the company admitted guilt on 14 criminal charges and agreed to pay an historic $4.5bn (£2.8bn) penalty in connection with the fatal explosion of its rig and the catastrophic oil spill.

The payments include $4bn for criminal charges and $525m to security regulators. BP will plead guilty to 11 felony counts of misconduct or neglect in relation to the deaths of 11 men aboard the Deepwater Horizon when the rig blew up and sank in April 2010, as well as misdemeanour counts under the clean water and migratory bird acts. The company will plead guilty to lying to Congress.

The Conservative party has said it has no plans to discipline Chris Heaton-Harris for plotting with a Telegraph columnist to help him stand as an anti-windfarm candidate in the Corby byelection, even though the MP was the official agent for the Tory campaign in the constituency.

After speaking to Heaton-Harris and watching the video evidence, Tory officials said they wanted to focus on the big issues, but admitted he had been silly.

Ministers have been accused of "hiding inconvenient truths" about the spread of the deadly fungus threatening Britain's ash trees.

The criticism stems from changes made to the "scientific facts" published by the government about ash dieback, which emphasised the role of the wind in spreading the disease over the role of infected trees imported from continental Europe. Ministers can do nothing to stop the wind blowing spores across the country, but have been attacked for taking too long to ban the import and movement of infected ash trees.