Clause 11
Climate Change Bill [Lords]
2:45 pm
David Maclean (Penrith and The Border, Conservative)
Although I have tabled amendments to the clause and have attempted to scatter other amendments across other parts of the Bill, they all basically say or ask the same thing.
Clause 11(2) says that
“the Secretary of State in coming to any decision under this Part relating to carbon budgets”
has to take
“scientific knowledge about climate change”
into account. I want to insert three proposals that would make it absolutely clear that among the scientific knowledge the Secretary of State had to take into account would be rises in global temperature, the impact of climate change on world biodiversity and the impact in relation to the loss of world forests.
In relation to other parts of the Bill, where the Prime Minister is under a duty to report on climate change, I say that he should ensure that the report includes impact on world forests, biodiversity and temperature rises. Why am I doing that? What concerns me? What concerns me is the fact that this is a highly technical Bill. It is a pretty boring Bill. It is almost like the EU treaty—totally inexplicable to outsiders. One would think that it is understood only by accountants. Like the EU treaty, the people may go one way, yet the leaders carry on.
I worry that when the Prime Minister comes to make a report—a change may be made, and the report may have to be made by the Secretary of State—and things are taken into account, if one is merely dealing with some of the arguments that we have had this morning, which are interesting but esoteric arguments about 60 or 80 per cent., I am afraid that the people in the pubs in Hexham and Penrith are going to lose interest. They will not understand the relevance of it all.
As I have been reading about this subject, I have discovered that climate change is infinitely important to our survival. Yet, from my research on the effects of climate change on England, it does not seem very frightening. Why do we have this complex Bill? Why are we setting targets that may have enormous costs for the economy and be difficult to implement? Why are we doing it when the research into the consequences for England suggests it would simply mean a little bit of warming? There would be flash floods and more violent storms—that would not be good. We are likely to have water shortages and hosepipe bans and, of course, if sea levels rose, large parts of lowland England and Scotland, and Wales too, no doubt, would be underwater. I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal, would not want his home to become a new Lindisfarne; a new Holy island in Suffolk. So, there are serious consequences of rises in water levels.
We would have hot spells—my research suggests that we would probably get more train lines buckling in the heat, but we would probably not have frozen points in winter. It is difficult to see things of earth-shattering importance that will happen because of climate change in England. Yet we know that the consequences of climate change can be absolutely disastrous for the survival of the whole human race, and for the survival of the human race in this country.
If there is a 2°C rise in global temperature, we will find a large decline in global freshwater resources, decreased crop yields in the world, widespread hunger and our seas will become more acid. There will be a loss of biodiversity, the mass extinction of some species and extreme weather conditions around the world. There will be widespread droughts around the world, a near-total loss of coral reefs, and perhaps the start of the melting of the Greenland ice sheet. There will be a northwards expansion of the spread of tropical diseases such as malaria, and in this country we will get more non-indigenous species. Some of those species may be benign, but some may be quite malignant, such as our grey squirrels in Hexham and Penrith.
We will see the potential extinction of arctic species, including the polar bear. The polar bear is one of those wonderful icons. My secretary gives me an awful ear bashing in Portcullis House if I go out and leave the lights on, because she is trying to save the polar bear. That is something that has stuck in the public conscience. Much as polar bears are important, as I was trying to say on Second Reading, there are more important species than that, although they are not as cuddly—although I am sure that polar bears are not that cuddly—and do not look as friendly.
A couple of weeks ago I went to Kew to do a little bit of background research before serving on this Committee, and one of the things that scared me in the wonderful greenhouses at Kew was the tiny number of species of insects that pollinate in the world. We know about bees, but there are other insects that pollinate around the world. If we lose some of those rather unsexy little bugs and species, the world starves. Nothing pollinates in future.