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Carbon Dioxide Reduction Target

The Government are certainly not ignoring the science; we have looked carefully at the fourth assessment report and I have tried to explain the Government’s view in the light of our assessment of its findings. I have tried to say that the Government have an open mind and recognise that there is a dynamic process involved, which is why there is flexibility in the draft Climate Change Bill to be able to amend the target by order in the future if that is required. The hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr. Goodwill) suggested that climate change emissions might be beyond the control of the Government, and he also referred to justiciability. That is not the spirit of Kyoto or what is required for the future. We took on legally binding commitments at Kyoto and we hope that we will take on legally binding commitments in a post-2012 regime. It is not, as he suggests, a question of the UK going it alone. He will be aware of the spring European Council decision on a 20 per cent cut. unilaterally across the European Union, and we want it to be more than that—30 per cent. by 2020. We hope to see international agreement on that. We do have tools: the EU emissions trading scheme; proposals on zero-carbon homes; the energy efficiency commitment, which is being doubled and renamed; the climate change levy; climate change agreements; the work of the Carbon Trust; and the Energy Saving Trust. There is a range of Government programmes that the hon. Member for Cheltenham wants to ignore at every possible occasion, but which are helping the UK in our drive to become a low-carbon economy. The hon. Gentleman does at least welcome the Climate Change Bill. His speech was long on criticism but wrong in most respects where it gave credit for action to tackle climate change. He needs to address the nuclear issue—and the hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby might want to convince the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) of the benefits of nuclear. My hon. Friend the Member for Morley and Rothwell discussed contraction and convergence. The Government are not hiding from that. We are looking for the best possible framework through which to address the global problem of climate change. As part of our international deliberations, we are considering in detail contraction and convergence, along with three or four other potential models in terms of the emissions reductions that can be delivered and the economic costs. As I have said to him before, there is no international consensus about what is the right approach to adopt, but I understand the importance of contraction and convergence as a potential model.