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Climate Change Bill [HL]

My Lords, we on these Benches also welcome the amendment in general terms, and I would make many similar comments to those of the noble Lord, Lord Taylor—although I will not repeat them—about choosing the baseline year and keeping it in an international context. We would like to see more targeted greenhouse gases, but we will come on to that later. It is important that all greenhouse gases, by international convention, are measured against a 1990 baseline, and that is recognised in the amendment. But there should be a hierarchy of preferences for new gases so that, as the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, said, it is the same as international convention. It is much more straightforward if we are able to keep to 1990. Clearly, that will not be possible where records do not exist for that gas at the time, but there should always be a preference to keep the baseline year at 1990 in order to ensure that the whole process is not confused. Even now, we often forget that when we talk about targets and reductions we are referring to 1990 and not to the year in which this Bill is likely to be passed.