London (Platts)--28Oct2009/659 am EDT/1059 GMT

UK secretary of state for energy and climate change Ed Miliband Wednesday said the country would not sign up to a deal at Copenhagen climate change talks in December if it thought the deal was too weak for the scale of the problem.

"An inadequate deal is not something that we want to sign up to," Miliband said, speaking during an evidence session with the House of Commons energy and climate change committee, a cross-party group of members of parliament.

Miliband said that a deal had to be comprehensive, dealing with emissions reductions, finance arrangements and technology issues. If Copenhagen treaty talks were not going to achieve a full response to climate change, we "shouldn't sign a deal there," he said.

Yet there was no plan B if talks failed, Miliband said, echoing recent statements to that effect by others involved in the climate change talks, such as UK prime minister Gordon Brown, Danish energy minister Connie Hedegaard and UN climate chief Yvo de Boer.

"I don't think it's very clear what plan B is or should be," said Miliband, adding that he was not using that as a negotiation tactic.

He said that this was as good a time as any to make a deal.

"If not now, when?" he said. "I don't think it's going to get any easier."

The fate of the treaty "genuinely hangs in the balance" at the moment, Miliband said.

He was "more optimistic" than he had been a month or so ago, looking at moves abroad in countries such as the US. He hoped Europe could act as "a persuader" towards an ambitious deal.

Miliband said a key aim was to get global emissions to peak by 2020, and then hit a downward path thereafter. That would "mark a significant moment," he said.

Countries should not proceed as if at a traditional negotiation holding all their cards close to their chests until the last moment, he said.

Meanwhile, Miliband said the UK was "on track" to hit its own carbon-cutting targets. On central projections the country would overachieve against its carbon budget targets, he said.

This was partly down to the recession, which has cut energy demand and industrial output. "There is a recession effect," Miliband admitted.

But he said that even without the recession the UK could hit its targets. "We shouldn't rely on the recession and we're not relying on it," he said.

--Alex Froley, alex_froley@platts.com