LAST December, 195 nations met in Paris to agree a policy that will tackle global warming and the climate change that follows. They were successful. They gave themselves time to consider the implications before the official signing began in April this year, well before they meet again to plan the next step next month, in Morocco.

It's not legally binding on all nations until it has been signed by 55 of them and they must account for at least 55 per cent of the international emissions of carbon dioxide. At the last count it had been signed by 90 countries producing over 55 per cent of the world's emissions between them. The list includes France, Brazil, China, USA and countries in the EU – the last three by far the largest producers of CO2.

The total would be two percent higher if the UK signed, but two Prime Ministers have had the opportunity and the current one is certainly taking her time but reckons she will do so by Christmas, The UK commitment to reduce emissions still seems at best half hearted, and that after we were the first country to have an independent Climate Change Act as government policy as far back as 2008.

However since then political control has changed and it seems there's less commitment now, and particularly so after the EU referendum where the emphasis was on reducing regulation, much of it environmental. Some of the Brexit supporting politicians are well known for downplaying climate change and the role of carbon dioxide to put it mildly.

For an Oxford educated geography graduate Theresa May demonstrates an unexpectedly weak appreciation of the reasons for climate change, and her abolition of the separate Department for the Environment and Climate Change, making it subordinate to the business world, was a surprising mistake.

Even though she will have signed before the deadline the real concern is the nature of some of the practices that her government will support once the need to meet the more demanding EU standards no longer apply. Apart from encouraging fracking for gas, and the associated unwanted methane leaks, there will be genetically modified crops, less opposition to the widespread use of glyphosate, the Roundup weed killer, or to the neonicotinoid pesticides that have helped reduce the number of pollinating bees that much of our food depends on.

We will no longer have to meet the stringent demands made by EU regulations on air quality, the purity of our beaches and bathing water, nor the recycling targets that we have struggled with compared to most European nations.

Don't believe her when she says we are a world leader in tackling climate change. We're not.