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Climate Change Bill [Lords]

I am depressed by the re-emergence of such forceful Conservative climate change scepticism during this debate, but impressed by the emerging consensus among all three major parties regarding support not only for this Bill but for a stronger version of it. I stand here to honour a pledge to my constituents to fight for binding targets for greenhouse gas reduction. I stand in the tradition of a party and, more importantly, a green movement that I have counted myself a member of for nearly 30 years, and that tried for decades to draw the attention of Governments to the seriousness of the crisis that we faced. I stand here finally as a parent, so that I can look my children in the eye when they are older and tell them that I played my part in the attempt to stop the catastrophe when there was still time. The omens, however, are not good. The Bill contains the 60 per cent. target, which was based on the royal commission report from 2000. It based that, in turn, on the assumption that stabilisation at 550 parts per million was sufficient to contain global warming within 2° C above pre-industrial levels. However, by the time the Stern report was published, those numbers were already out of date. The Hadley centre, which was mentioned earlier by a Conservative Member, is quoted in the Stern report as saying that at 550 parts per million, the probability of exceeding 2° C is 99 per cent. Even at 450 parts per million, the probability of exceeding 2° C is 78 per cent. The more conservative IPCC figures put the figure at 38 per cent. That is a risk that I would happily bet on if I was betting on a horse at the Cheltenham races; it is not one I would bet on for the future of the planet. Let us remind ourselves what exceeding 2° C of global warming actually means. Contrary to what some Conservative speakers have said today, there was a scientific review in Stern and it pointed out what the impacts of exceeding 2° C would be. It said:"““Significant changes in water availability...Possible onset of collapse of part or all of Amazonian rainforest…Many species face extinction (20-50 per cent. in one study)…Rising intensity of storms, forest fires, droughts, flooding and heat waves””," In the non-physical—in the political—realm, we can predict political and social conflict worldwide, and inevitably millions of deaths. The truth is that the IPCC science is relatively conservative. It is based on consensus and old science, and the new science is if anything more worrying. Let me give just one example, as there is little time. A meta-study published in Nature last month examined 28,800 datasets that might reveal climate impacts on animals and plants worldwide. Some 90 per cent. revealed alterations in the direction expected as a response to warming. Some 95 per cent. of the datasets, which were linked to physical changes such as retreating glaciers, painted the same picture. Those massive changes may induce physical feedback mechanisms to make the situation rapidly and unpredictably worse. Such mechanisms include changes in carbon absorption patterns in our oceans and soils, reduced reflectivity as white Arctic ice is more rapidly replaced by dark ocean, ice caps in Greenland and Antarctica accelerating their own melting much faster than we had first predicted, and a loss of biodiversity. The recent report by Robert Hazen of the Carnegie Institution for Science noted the added threat of deep reserves of greenhouse gases—carbon and methane—running into trillions of tonnes in the deep ocean floor and in the permafrost contributing to those feedback mechanisms. As a result, organisation after organisation is making it crystal clear that the 60 per cent. target is not enough. I was going to cite many organisations, but as many have already been mentioned, I shall refer to just one. WWF, which knows a little about biodiversity, has cited a recent analytical study by Ecofys for DEFRA, concluding:"““An 80 per cent. target in the Climate Change Bill would therefore be at the bottom end of the range recommended by Ecofys. A 60 per cent. target would completely fail to deliver the 2° C pathway that the Government supports.””" If that is not enough, Sir Nicholas Stern says:"““For a 50 per cent. reduction in global emissions by 2050, the world average per capita must drop from seven tonnes to two or three. Within these global targets, even a minimal view of equity demands that the rich countries' reductions should be at least 80 per cent.””." He is right to talk about equity, and other quotes that I could have cited mention burden sharing. This is not just a scientific decision; as some hon. Members have said, it is a moral and political decision. It is about what share of responsibility the United Kingdom and the other developed countries are prepared to take for their share of emissions. I am pessimistic enough about this Government's ability to take action and conscious enough of the need for an clear target for industry and the private sector to be in favour of a 100 per cent. reduction target. However, I am prepared to compromise at 80 per cent. for this Bill—I believe that that is the consensus in many parts of this Chamber. I am disappointed that the Government and the Conservative Front-Bench team are still stuck at 60 per cent., and I hope that we can change their minds, not least because the UK has huge geophysical resources for renewable energy, and enormous talent and entrepreneurial potential. We should be a world leader in the fight against climate change, not a laggard. The right hon. Member for Edinburgh, East (Dr. Strang) rightly said that we needed strong, early action. I am reminded of the note written by Churchill during world war two when he was presented with evidence that radical investment in code breaking could significantly shorten the war. It simply said, ““Action this day””. We now face an even greater, even more serious and even more global crisis than world war two. We need to move on to a war footing against climate change. We need action, and not only by setting targets in this Bill. The rest of the Government need to act on international trade, energy, transport, housing and taxation, and they need to refuse applications such as those for a third runway at Heathrow or for a new power station at Kingsnorth without carbon capture. We need action this day.