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Climate Change Bill [HL]

If we do not have indicative targets—let us be clear, none of us is asking for statutory targets—the world at large, the scientific community and the political world will simply take the gap between the beginning of the budget period and the end and divide it by five, and the Government will be judged on that. It will be far more intelligent, far more practical and far better if the Committee on Climate Change, or whatever mechanism is finally put in place, makes evidence-based decisions beforehand. Simple mathematics will probably not work and will probably do the Government of the day more harm. It will be much better to do things in a planned way.