My Lords, I speak in the gap to welcome this Bill. I have been working at the University College London Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling with the BAS for the past 14 years. I would like to emphasise two aspects. As the Antarctic environment is changing, it becomes more liable to artificial risks, a point made by the noble Earl, Lord Selborne. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, commented, some of these accidents may well be deliberate. Indeed, a novelist approached me recently to ask for various fiendish methods by which we could destroy the environment, so I came up with some interesting ones, which I will not tell you about.
I welcome Clause 5(2)(a) on the obligation to reduce risk, but Clause 8(1)(a) should surely be modified. Currently, it gives the Secretary of State power to require information about activities that “have given rise” to “an environmental emergency”. Surely, the Secretary of State should have power to require information about the risks of possible future emergencies. I believe that that clause needs to be changed. Indeed,
I believe that the Secretary of State, in conjunction with the international panel in Buenos Aires and so on, should establish with other countries an ongoing and openly published document or website about future risks, as they keep changing.
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