Environment Food and Rural Affairs written question – answered at on 6 June 2005.
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs whether it is the Government's policy that the post-Kyoto strategy to tackle climate change should be target-based on a country basis.
As yet, there have been no formal intergovernmental discussions of the design of a future commitment period under the Kyoto protocol. The UK will chair the EU at the UN climate change conference at the end of this year at which these discussions are due to commence. Our presidency of the EU gives us an excellent opportunity to galvanise work on preparing for future action. Nevertheless, experts have been considering what different approaches might look like and a number of approaches have been suggested for the design of future action on climate change.
At this stage, it is important that we remain flexible in looking at the options, that all existing suggestions for future frameworks remain on the table, and that full consideration is given both to the possible frameworks themselves and to the elements within them that could be used to form part of a workable solution.
In considering any future regime, the Government's long-term view is that the architecture of a future framework needs to be realistic (relevant to countries with different national circumstances), robust (capable of being adjusted in the light of experience) and durable (will not become irrelevant after a few years) but for any such framework to be effective, it would be necessary for it to achieve a wide global acceptance and to deliver results in terms of significant emissions reductions. The Government are committed to finding a solution to the issue of climate change that meet these criteria.
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