IT IS a great pity that your article demanding that the new M4 be built preceded the publication of the latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).You recognise that a new M4 would have an impact on wildlife on the Gwent Levels but you make no mention of what could turn out to be a hugely greater problem; I mean of course climate change.

Climate change is the “spectre at the feast” and. While many of us, though by no means all, have been enjoying a high-consumption lifestyle for many years, climate change intrudes to remind us of the awful price that will one day have to be paid for a high-consumption lifestyle.

It suits many people, including Monmouth MP David Davies, to deny the fact of climate change but the IPCC is more certain than ever that it is occurring and that the human race is largely responsible for it. That being so, the very last thing that we should be doing is building more roads. The present road network is more than adequate for the necessarily smaller number of vehicles that will be around in the future.

People will argue that the UK’s contribution to climate change is very small but the point is that we contribute disproportionately in relation to the size of our population. Perhaps the climate change deniers would like to speculate on the effect of China, India and other countries with huge populations contributing to the problem at the same rate as us.

Clive Shakesheff Lewis Way Chepstow