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Climate Change Bill [Lords]

My right hon. Friend makes a familiar point, if I may say so. I can only repeat to him that it takes a great deal of courage to disregard the scientific consensus of the world's leading climate change scientists. However, even if one wishes and has the courage to do that, there are many things that we ought to be doing in any case, such as making ourselves less dependent on fossil fuels and being more sparing in our use of natural resources. I will address some of those issues shortly. While we are addressing the science, however, let me commend to my right hon. Friend the words of someone who did take a degree in science: Margaret Thatcher. She said:"““Until recently, we have always thought that whatever progress humanity makes, our planet would stay much the same. That may no longer be true. The way we generate energy. The way we use land. The way industry uses natural resources and disposes of waste. The way our populations multiply. Those things taken together are new in the experience of the earth. They threaten to change the atmosphere above us and the sea around us. That is the scale of the global challenge.””" Margaret Thatcher said that 20 years ago. We are not dealing with anything new here; this is familiar territory in terms of the scientific knowledge. She also said:"““It is no good squabbling over who is responsible and who should pay. Whole areas of our planet could be subject to drought and starvation if the pattern of rains and monsoons were to change as a result of the destruction of forests and the accumulation of greenhouse gasses””." Twenty years on, I suggest that it is not worth squabbling about the scientific evidence. Whether or not mankind or CO2 emissions are responsible, something is happening to the planet, to our ecology and to our economy that we cannot carry on ignoring. Last year, the Artic summer ice reduction was 30 years ahead of the predicted melt rate forecast by NASA. If melting continues at this rate, the Arctic ice cap could completely disappear in the summer months before 2030. Average temperatures in Britain have risen by more than 1° C since the 1970s—almost twice as fast as the global rate of warming over the same period. Since the late 1990s, droughts and unusually hot summers have contributed to a fall in world grain yields, during which time the number of extra mouths to feed in the world has risen by more than 600 million. Let us take just last year alone. Africa suffered the biggest flood in three decades, which hit 23 countries from Senegal in the west to Somalia in the east, and affected more than 41 million people. Nepal, India and Bangladesh were hit by the worst flooding in living memory, and so it goes on. I do not imagine that anyone in this House fails to understand that the consequences of climate change are moral, social and economic, as well as environmental. The question is: what will this Bill do to address the problem?