Viscount Ridley
Main Page: Viscount Ridley (Conservative - Excepted Hereditary)
Baroness Verma
My noble friend is absolutely right: that it is not a binding target. However, in the UK we have not been under binding targets before but have managed to ensure that our uptake of renewables has increased. We have almost doubled our renewable energy sources since coming into government in 2010. It does mean that we have an agreement now from 28 members, all agreeing that the targets, being non-binding, enable each member state to be free and flexible in how it reaches those targets.
Viscount Ridley (Con)
My Lords, does my noble friend the Minister agree that the fifth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has confirmed, in the same words, that there has been a “hiatus” in global warming for at least the past 15 years? Will she give us the opinion of her scientific advisers as to when that hiatus is likely to end?
Baroness Verma
My Lords, my noble friend raises a couple of issues that we would dispute in a longer debate. What we do recognise is that a change in weather patterns is happening across the globe and that climate change is occurring; it may have slowed down but that is a good thing, and it could well be that some of the measures we are taking today have helped that to occur. If we are to respond seriously to climate change and changing weather patterns, we need to be able to put in place things that mitigate and adapt to those different patterns.