Climate Change Bill [HL]

My Lords, I have not intervened before in our consideration of the Bill but I hope that the House will forgive me if I intervene briefly to explain why I cannot support my Front Bench on the amendment. It is misconceived for two reasons. First, as the noble Lord has just said, the notion that defining a temperature 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels is the right temperature is entirely without basis. The world’s temperature, as we know, has gone up and down through large ranges over history, and the notion that we can define a temperature as the optimum temperature is without basis. Secondly, I certainly question the notion that the science is sufficiently defined for us to be able to define what level of carbon emissions would produce any particular effect on the Earth’s temperature, or indeed whether those would be the primary driver of any change in the Earth’s temperature. There is so much uncertainty about both the level and the quantity of change that would result from any particular set of emissions that to build into a Bill a set of objectives that try to define emissions to achieve some precise notion of temperature change again fails to take account of the unrealities and the uncertainties in the science backing this. With much regret, therefore, I do not think that the amendment is appropriate, although I understand the motives behind it. I suspect that a number of other noble Lords will find it difficult to support the Conservative Front Bench on this one.