Climate Change Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 131: 131: Schedule 1, page 40, line 16, at end insert— ““The Climate Change Adaptation Sub-Committee 15A (1) The Committee must establish a sub-committee to be known as the Climate Change Adaptation Sub-Committee (referred to in this Part as ““the Adaptation Sub-Committee””). (2) The Adaptation Sub-Committee shall be chaired by a member of the Climate Change Committee and shall otherwise consist of persons who are not members of the Committee. (3) In appointing a member of the Adaptation Sub-Committee, the Secretary of State must have regard to the desirability of securing that the Adaptation Sub-Committee (taken as a whole) has expert experience in or knowledge of the following— (a) climate change science and other branches of environmental science; (b) contingency planning; (c) ecology and biodiversity; (d) economics; (e) flood risk; (f) infrastructure asset management; (g) public health; (h) risk management; (i) international development; and (j) any other significant adaptations required to address the risks identified in the most recent report under section 48.”” The noble Lord said: My Lords, I wish to speak to Amendments Nos. 131, 152, 165 and 197. The Joint Committee identified at an early stage that the original draft Bill was heavily concerned with mitigation targets and devoted little attention to adaptation. That situation has improved to a certain extent. However, people in the environmental movement are clear that adaptation to climate change is as important as mitigation. It is a regrettable fact that many of the consequences of climate change will continue to be felt even if we ceased emitting carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases immediately—hence the urgency to introduce mitigating measures. There is a time lag of between 100 and 200 years in that regard. Therefore, adaptation is incredibly important and is the reason these amendments were tabled. They stand in my name and those of other noble Lords from other sides of the House. The United Kingdom needs to focus on adaptation through this Bill. I listened carefully to the debate we had on this issue in Committee and redrafted the amendments as a result. At that stage we wanted to have an ad hoc adaptation committee entirely separate from the rest of the machinery in the Bill. On reflection, we decided that our proposal was flawed and have therefore redrafted the amendment to place even greater emphasis on adaptation. Clearly, the best way to do that is to include it in one of the Bill’s main structures; namely, the Committee on Climate Change. The Bill provides for sub-committees of the climate change committee but is not specific about them, nor about who should be on them or what subjects they should tackle. We think that there should be a sub-committee specifically concerned with adaptation and that it needs to be separate from the committee because the subjects that it will tackle, its goals and the assessments it will need to make require very different skills than those required to tackle mitigation. Therefore, while we adopt a holistic approach in bringing mitigation and adaptation together under the climate change committee, it is very important to have a separate sub-committee to tackle adaptation. The amendment states very clearly the skills and expertise that members of that sub-committee will require. Amendment No. 152 sets out the important roles that the sub-committee would perform. Amendment No. 165 states that the committee’s report must assess the Government’s programme for adaptation to climate change, consider its implementation and, most importantly, look at, "““any further action required as part of the programme””." So this is a very important and powerful committee. Amendment No. 197 would strengthen the parliamentary response to climate change as it would require the Secretary of State to, "““invite the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee to review every report laid before Parliament under this section””." We believe that would help ensure that the Government would be held fully accountable to Parliament for their policies and programmes on adaptation, as they are for those on mitigation. I beg to move.