WANSTEAD and Leyton MP Harry Cohen has criticised the Government for failing to reach a strong agreement over climate change in Copenhagen.

Yesterday questioning secretary of state for energy and climate change Ed Miliband in Parliament, Mr Cohen repeated the controversial comparison made by a Sudanese delegate at the summit between failure at Copenhagen and a holocaust.

He asked: “Was the delegate from Sudan right when comparing the failure at Copenhagen to a holocaust?

“Will not many millions be killed in this century as a result of higher temperatures and increased natural disasters including flooding and, indeed, in wars?”

He added that he believes the US, China and developing countries were at fault for not reaching an agreement and called the EU's money commitment to bring the developing world on board “soft and unreliable”.

He also asked what the Government was going to do to strengthen the arrangement.

But secretary of state Mr Miliband said the Sudanese delegate's remarks were “reprehensible” and added: “The process of people putting their targets on the table by 31 January is part of the process of Europe moving up.”

He also said Mr Cohen was right to refer to the commitments on finance but said he would “not quite describe them as soft because they are clear commitments”.