Departmental Public Expenditure

Grant Shapps
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change pursuant to the answer of 10 March 2009, Official Report, column 404W, on the economic situation, what estimate he has made of the carbon cost of the meeting of energy and oil Ministers in London on 18 and 19 December 2008; and whether his Department took steps to offset such carbon expenditure.

Mr. Mike O'Brien
The Department has made no estimate of the carbon cost of the meeting of international energy and oil Ministers in London on 18 and 19 December 2008. No specific steps were taken by the Department to offset this impact. I have no information on the extent to which participants may have taken steps themselves to offset the carbon impact of their attendance at the meeting.