Climate Change Bill

A Command Paper has been laid before Parliament today providing the Government's response to the pre-legislative scrutiny and public consultation on the draft UK Climate Change Bill. The document responds to reports by three parliamentary Committees: the Ad Hoc Joint Committee on the Draft Climate Change Bill, the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee in its Fifth Report, and the Environmental Audit Committee as part of its enquiry entitled ““Beyond Stern: From the Climate Change Programme Review to the Draft Climate Change Bill””. The Command Paper also responds to the nearly 17,000 responses to the public consultation on the draft Bill, which ran from 13 March to 12 June 2007. I am grateful to all three Committees which scrutinised the draft Bill and to members of the public for their many constructive suggestions. Responses to the draft Bill have been very positive, reflecting the wide and increasing support for action on climate change. The reports by the different parliamentary committees, and the views expressed during the public consultation, have helped us strengthen the Bill further and increase the transparency it will bring to our efforts to reduce emissions. The Climate Change Bill will put into statute our long-term 2050 target to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by at least 60 per cent. from their 1990 levels. As the Prime Minister announced in September, we will ask the new, expert, and independent Committee on Climate Change to report on whether our 60 per cent. target, which is already bigger than most other countries, should be even stronger still. The committee will also look at the implications of including other greenhouse gases in our targets, and we intend to take powers in the Bill to allow us to do this at a future stage if necessary. In addition, the committee's report will examine the implications of including international aviation and shipping emissions in our targets. Once the rules for including aviation in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme have been finalised, we will also ask the committee for its advice on whether there is a methodology for including international aviation emissions in our targets which is workable and compatible with the EU ETS and takes account of progress in the UNFCCC and the wider international context, and on the impacts of adopting it. The draft Bill proposed a new system of five-yearly ““carbon budgets””, set at least 15 years ahead and backed by a strong system of annual accountability, under which every year the Committee on Climate Change would provide an independent report to Parliament on progress towards meeting targets and budgets, and every year the Government would respond to this report. To further strengthen the transparency and accountability of the Bill's framework, we now intend to require the committee to publish its analysis and advice to Government on setting the budgets, as well as the minutes of its meetings. We will also require Government to explain their reasons to Parliament if it does not accept the committee's advice on the level of the carbon budget, or if it does not meet a budget or target. We will rationalise the current requirements on reporting greenhouse gas emissions to make them more coherent, and we will report annually to Parliament on emissions from international aviation and shipping in line with UNFCCC practice. We intend to strengthen the institutional framework created by the Bill by enhancing the role of the new Committee on Climate Change, so that the Government are required to seek the committee's advice before amending the 2050 or 2020 targets in the Bill, before introducing the first set of regulations on the use of carbon credits, and before establishing any trading schemes under the Bill. In addition, we intend to strengthen the committee's independence of Government by confirming that it will appoint its own chief executive and staff, and plan to increase the resources which will be available to it in the light of the parliamentary Committees' recommendations. We will use the Climate Change Bill to support the implementation of several specific policy measures for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. We will use the trading powers in the Bill to introduce the Carbon Reduction Commitment, a mandatory cap-and-trade scheme covering energy use emissions from large, non-energy-intensive organisations. We will also use the Bill to improve the operation of the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation and to provide a power to pilot local authority incentives for household waste minimisation and recycling. We will announce proposals in due course. Together, these policies could save the equivalent of up to 9.4 to 13.9 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per year by 2020. Tackling climate change requires a two-pronged effort: action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in order to avoid future dangerous levels of climate change, and action to deal with the impact that we are already experiencing and will continue to experience over coming decades. The Bill will therefore require the Government, on a regular basis, to assess the risks to the UK from the impact of climate change and report to Parliament. In addition, the Bill will also require the Government to publish and regularly update a programme covering England and reserved matters setting out how we will address these likely impacts in a sustainable way. Since the publication of the draft Bill, we have also been working with the devolved Administrations to clarify how the Bill will operate, given the relationship of reserved and devolved responsibilities in this area. We are pleased that a way forward has been agreed, so that the revised Bill will reflect the contributions of all four administrations and will provide a clear UK-wide framework for tackling climate change. Copies of the Command Paper are available in the Libraries of both Houses and the Vote Office. The document can also be found on the website of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs www.defra.gov.uk along with a summary of the consultation responses. A revised Bill, incorporating the changes set out above, will be published shortly.