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Climate Change Bill [Lords]

No, I am sorry. I want to make these points myself. We are a very adaptable people, and we can achieve much more by pursuing economic growth, and as we are richer, applying the technology that we have and that we develop to deal with these issues. In the 2003 heatwave, there was a huge amount of publicity concerning the 2,000 additional heat-related deaths in London, but every year in this city 25,000 people die of cold in the winter. It is not just a one-way street—there are benefits of global warming as well as costs, and those are never taken into account in the visions with which we are presented. The whole intellectual underpinning of the Government's policy is the Stern review. It was conscripted after they had come to their conclusions, which perhaps accounts for the methodology that Stern has used, and it has been comprehensively taken apart, as my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr. Tyrie) says. Stern is accused of exaggerating the science. A review by some very distinguished people in World Economics states:"““We consider that the Review is doubly deficient. The scientific evidence for dangerous change is, in fact, far from overwhelming, and the Review presents a picture of the scientific debate that is neither accurate nor objective.””" Professor Nordhaus, whom my hon. Friend quoted, said in the Yale symposium at which Stern was present:"““The review's unambiguous conclusions about the need for extreme immediate action will not survive the substitution of assumptions that are consistent with today's market place real interest rates””." That is the rub. Stern has exaggerated the damages that will be caused. The hon. Member for Brent, North (Barry Gardiner) shakes his head, but he should read the Yale symposium document cover to cover. He will find that those criticisms are in there, and they are very trenchant indeed.