Climate Change Bill [HL]

I thank the Minister for going through the Government’s view of this new clause in great detail and the other amendments in the group. I return to the understanding of temperatures in the past and their variability. I am sympathetic with the many Members of the Committee who spoke about the habit of statisticians who talk about great accuracy in statistics when there is none. There is considerable research about these temperatures and there is sufficient evidence on which we can rely. Our own Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology’s publication on climate change science states: "““Over the last 100 years the global mean surface temperature has warmed 0.74oC ± 0.18oC, although there is significant regional variability””." We all understand that there are limitations, but that shows that we can have confidence—as much as we can in any climate change science—about the figures that we are discussing. Indeed, we risk throwing the baby out with the bathwater if we start to question the numbers that the Bill is based upon. The Joint Committee on the Draft Climate Change Bill, chaired so well by the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, went through so much of this so that both Houses could assure themselves that the figures were correct. I return to the amendments. I agree with many of the comments by the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Holbeach, particularly those in his second intervention. There is a great need for clarity in the Bill. The fact that something has not been done before in UK domestic legislation should not put us off doing something special here, as the Bill is very special. Therefore, we owe it to have clarity. We are asking the Committee on Climate Change to consider revising the specific targets in the Bill, so it is important to have that context and objective in the Bill. That is why the argument for having 2 degrees centigrade in the Bill, and at the beginning, remains important. We will wish to pursue this, but for the moment I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. [Amendments Nos. 2 and 3 not moved.]