Last week I said I was going to look up my MEP. I’m living in Salford (near Manchester) right now, and it turns out that my MEP is Chris Davies ), a Liberal Democrat - and member of ENVI, the EU’s committee on environment, public health and food safety. So not only is the CO2 legislation a European issue that is vital to everyone – we’re all affected by climate change - I have an MEP who’s involved in the decision.

I went to Chris Davies’ website and I was happy to find out that he has a keen interest in climate change issues. Back in August he was planning to visit the climate camp in Kent, where activists were campaigning against the building of yet more coal fired power stations. I grew up on the London/Kent borders and the thought of another huge 1,6000 MW plant in the garden of England makes me despair.

There are so many better, sustainable and non-polluting alternatives, so why pump out more CO2 and pile on even more problems when we all know climate change is a reality?

Davis agrees. “What is at stake here is the future of the planet and the survival of billions of people. Climate change threatens global catastrophe. Governments across the world must act if carbon dioxide emissions are to be reduced. Words are not enough.”

So he’s on my side, right?

Well he says he's “seeking to reduce CO2 emissions from cars from their present average of 165g CO2/km to just 95g by 2020.”

It gets better and better. I’m beginning to like this man. And though I moved to his area after the elections so I couldn’t vote for him, I’d like to shake the hands of all the people who did.

But wait, I found an interview with him saying the German car industry should have more time to comply with the new rules.

And though I like some of what he says, I’m not so keen on his claim that “the industry has got to have as much time as we can give it” but at least he is calling for “tougher environmental targets”.

But a bit more digging revealed that Davies presented a report to the Parliament in 2007 calling for more time - remember the original proposals were for 130g by 2012. Thanks to Davies’ report, that target was changed to 125g in 2015. So the car industry gets “as much time as we can give it” – an extra 3 years to carry on pumping up CO2 emissions. A good deal for the German carmakers that Davies talked about in the video clip but the climate has been sold short again.

Remember that industry vote? One of the proposals from the industry committee is a target of 130g/km by 2015. So 2015, put forward by Davies, could become a reality. How does that help the future of the planet?

I’ve also heard that Davies supports moves to get opt-outs for some luxury cars including Jaguar Land Rover, now owned by Indian giant Tata. Presumably this is about keeping UK jobs. But if Jaguar worked harder on improving efficiency instead of trying to get out of reducing emissions its roar might not be so muted.