Chris Huhne has compared climate change sceptics to politicians in the 1930s who believed Adolf Hitler could be appeased.
The Energy Secretary was speaking at Chatham House when he said that today's need for a deal tackling climate change was "our Munich moment".
"Giving in to the forces of low ambition would be an act of climate appeasement," he said.
The Munich Agreement was signed in 1938 as a last-ditch effort to stop the Nazis from undertaking further terrestrial expansion. Signed by British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, it was heavily criticised by Winston Churchill and Anthony Eden, and was ultimately unsuccessful in preventing a European war.
In his comments, Mr Huhne added: "Winston Churchill...once said that 'an appeaser is someone that feeds a crocodile, hoping that it will eat him last."
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