The Rt Hon Malcolm Bruce MP

February-March column

• Hope as climate change consensus brings new direction

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As a founder of the G8 + 5 legislators dialogue on climate change I am delighted that even members of the US congress are now signing up to the need for urgent action to tackle the challenge of climate change.

As immediate past president of Globe International and chairman of Globe UK I attended a special session last week at the United States senate. No fewer than seven Senators participated including former Presidential candidate John Kerry and front runner for the Republican nomination next time John McCain.

They told us that the debate about the reality of global warming was now over. They said that there would be mandatory limits on greenhouse gas emissions in the USA in the near future and that the United States as the world largest emitter of greenhouse gases had an obligation to help the world meet this challenge which could lead to catastrophe in only thirty years.

The meeting agreed a declaration that called on the G8 plus 5 governments to

"identify a measurable long term goal to stabilise greenhouse gases in the atmosphere…at a level between 450 and 550 parts per million, recognising that meeting the EU's two degrees Celsius target would require stabilisation at the lower end of the range."

Indicating the urgency of the crisis we face the meeting called for "negotiations on such a framework be launched at the Bali meeting of the UN Forum for Climate Change in November and be concluded by 2009."

This was supported by China and India as well as the EU and the USA.

So at long last we now have support from the rising stars of American politics to join the rest of the world in saving the planet.

I am convinced that for some of them the disaster of the Iraq war gives them a strong motive to find issues with which they can re-engage the world and win back some respect and support for the USA.

• Nicol Stephen sets out vision at Aviemore

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I have been around in politics for too long to be easily impressed by leaders' speeches even when delivered by my own party. But at Aviemore last week Nicol Stephen made one of the most impressive deliveries I have seen.

He stood alone on the stage and engaged his audience directly. That in itself was risky and could have easily been dismissed as a gimmick.

However, he gave a detailed, informed, passionate and clear account of himself and what he wanted to achieve if he was to become Scotland's first minister, culminating in what he would do in the first seven months.

The three members of the public selected by the BBC to give their view on the conference certainly were impressed and particularly welcomed the detailed way in which the programme was presented and the clear explanation of not only what but how it would be achieved.

• Ethiopia visit highlights need for sanitation

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As Chair of the International Development Committee I do inevitably travel to see exactly how British taxes are used to try and reduce poverty in developing countries and we recently returned from Ethiopia where we were looking at water and sanitation projects.

We concluded early on that safe and effective sanitation was probably even more important than water. Lack of sanitation spreads disease and kills children on a greater scale than almost anything else and is so relatively easily dealt with.

We travelled deep into the countryside far from the capital Addis Ababa and saw a village which had recently acquired a tapped water point and completed a programme for latrines for each household.

We then saw a village borehole in a more water stressed region where a women-led local committee was managing the water distribution and maintenance.

In both cases they told us that the incidence of diarrhoea and other water-borne diseases had diminished sharply since the programme was started.

So we can easily see what works. What is less clear is how increased British aid money can ensure that this kind of success is replicated and scaled up to reach the millions of people who do not have access to water and sanitation.

Part of the issues is money but quite a lot is education. What is clear is that the main beneficiaries are women and children as they have to fetch the water and are most vulnerable to disease.

So one thing we need to ensure is that women are put in charge of water and sanitation and that men provide the resources and support. Then we may begin to see the scale of progress we need if UN targets are to be reached.

• Pressing on with sign language campaign

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I have stepped up my campaign to get more support for sign language across the UK. I have table an all party motion calling for recognition and more resources and at the party conference asked for more sign language interpreters to be trained in Scotland.

I was surprised to find the Scottish Executive are funding training for sign language interpreters in East Africa. While I don't object to that I would hope that they will start training a few more interpreters in Scotland.

They should take a leaf out of the Welsh Assembly which, being bilingual in English and Welsh, understands the issue of minority languages, and is training more interpreters than the rest of the UK.

I will go on campaigning for the rights of deaf people until they are acknowledged and delivered.

• Budding Olympic swimmers to get new pool

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I very much welcome the commitment of my party to a 50 metre Olympic pool for Aberdeen and Inverness. I have been campaigning for this for several years.

We have in Hannah Miley in Inverurie a world class swimmer, a gold medallist and British record holder. I am advised that many younger swimmers are coming up to her standard too.

They deserve an Olympic pool but we also need to upgrade our community pools which were designed for much smaller populations and I hope our local councils will consider this.

The commitment to the British Olympics in 2012 and the Glasgow Commonwealth games in 2014 means nothing if it doesn't reach the whole of the UK and lead to upgraded facilities at every level.

The North East is in the national frame for swimming and our young swimmers deserve support.