Clause 2
Climate Change Bill [Lords]
4:45 pm
David Chaytor (Bury North, Labour)
Of course. The history of the amendment—the debate about 60 per cent. and 80 per cent.—has been well rehearsed. It has been well argued in the Environmental Audit Committee, of which I am a member, and I imagine that the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee has also debated the matter at length. It was debated at enormous length in the Joint Committee on the Draft Climate Change Bill this time last year, and of course, it was given consideration in another place, so we do not need to go over the arguments in great detail. It is also not necessary to reinforce the urgent need for action and, in the context of the amendment, more stringent action on climate change, because of the damage that it is causing and is increasingly likely to cause. We are all familiar with those effects and predictions.
It is important, first, that as my hon. Friend the Minister said, the Government’s decision and the Bill reflect the scientific evidence, and secondly, that it has credibility. I shall come to the different kinds of credibility, if necessary, in due course.
In the debate on the previous clause, the Minister expressed concern that I would undermine his arguments. I am delighted that he was relieved that I did not. I want to reassure him that I do not intend to undermine his arguments in defence of the wording in the Bill. I want to strengthen the case that will underline some of his arguments and may get him to reconsider them, if not today, then before the Bill comes back on Report.
When the Government first expressed their intention to establish a 2050 target, it was framed in terms of 60 per cent.—the wording in the Bill is “at least 60%”—owing to the landmark 2000 report by the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution. That report concentrated the minds of many policy experts and the Government, and helped to generate a wider debate on climate change. The important thing is that the report based its judgment on the scientific evidence presented in the second assessment report by the intergovernmental panel on climate change, which was published in 1995. We are now in 2008 and the scientific basis for the figure adopted by the Government is therefore 13 years old. It is time that we reviewed the state of the scientific evidence.
Two years ago, the intergovernmental panel on climate change published its fourth assessment report, in which it made it much clearer that the evidence base had changed and that the likely reduction in emissions needed to remain within the 2° had increased. To be precise, the report stated clearly that if annexe 1 countries wish to keep to the guideline carbon concentration of 400 ppm by volume, we need to aim for cuts in the range of 25 to 40 per cent. by 2020, and 80 to 90 per cent. by 2050. Even if we keep to those guidelines, there is no guarantee that the temperature increase will remain below 2°. However, they represent our best chance.
If the scientific evidence undermines the Bill’s content, we need to base our judgment on the fourth assessment report. The Government recognised that to some extent by replacing their original formulation of a 60 per cent. reduction by 2050 with a reduction of “at least” 60 per cent. That provides a certain flexibility, but of course it could include 61, 62, or 60.003 per cent., and according to the fourth report that would not be enough.