Climate Change

Lord Judd Excerpts

Tuesday 17th June 2014 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Judd]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they are taking to strengthen global co-operation in order to meet the challenges of climate change and to ensure that the United Kingdom is an example of effective support for environmental protection and emission reduction.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Baroness Verma) (Con)]

My Lords, the Government work through multilateral organisations such as the UN, the G20 and the G7, among others, to encourage greater co-operation in tackling climate change, including through the UNFCCC, where we are seeking to agree in 2015 a new international and legally binding rule-based agreement to limit global emissions post-2020. The last UNFCCC Conference of the Parties in Warsaw at the end of 2013 saw all nations agreeing to start or intensify domestic preparations for a global climate change deal in 2015 and to work on a programme and timetable for this progress.

[Lord Judd (Lab)]

Would the Minister agree with the estimate that to avoid catastrophic consequences global warming must be contained to 2%? Would she also agree that as things stand, the world is on track for 3% to 5%? Is it not therefore absolutely essential that the Government stand firmly by their 50% carbon reduction target and do not in any way back-track? Is it not essential that they use this commitment within the European Union to persuade the Union to move beyond its totally inadequate target of 40%? Would she also agree that at the UN climate summit in September this year, we should use that commitment to galvanise the action necessary for a successful agreement at the world leaders’ summit next year?

[Baroness Verma]

The noble Lord is of course right that we need to have ambitious but cost-effective targets. We need the European Commission’s 2030 framework to be urgently agreed, which will adopt the 40% that the noble Lord mentioned. However, we have a more ambitious target to work towards—50%—in the context of an ambitious global agreement. That is what the United Kingdom is working hard to get.