The Climate Change Bill has passed second reading and will be in Committee stage between Tuesday 24 June and Tuesday 8 July.

Beginning tomorrow Anne will sit on the committee and hopes to press the Government to make the Bill stronger.

Anne has signed Early Day Motion 736 to make her intentions clear on this:  

CLIMATE CHANGE BILL

21.01.2008

Griffiths, Nigel

That this House welcomes the introduction of the Climate Change Bill to Parliament and the United Nations Development Programme's (UNDP's) recent Human Development Report which described the Bill as a bold and innovative proposal to create a national carbon budget; notes however that the UNDP also warned that the Bill needed improving as its targets were not ambitious enough, and international aviation emissions were excluded, meaning that even if the Bill were applied to every developed country, global temperature would rise well beyond the two degrees Celsius limit and perhaps as high as four or five degrees; congratulates the Prime Minister on his speech on 19th November 2007, when he acknowledged the evidence now suggests that as part of an international agreement developed countries may have to reduce their emissions by up to 80 per cent.; and urges the Government to support amendments to the Bill during its passage through Parliament to address the UNDP concerns, making it an unequivocally world-leading response to climate change.

Notes on the Climate Change Bill:

The Climate Change Bill is a world first. It sets ambitious binding emissions reductions targets in legislation and introduces a new system of Carbon Budgets across the economy. This will provide the right legal framework to ensure the UK continues to provide global leadership in tackling climate change. 

Many other countries are now looking at whether they should follow our lead and adopt a similar bill.

The Bill is the centrepiece of Labour’s commitment to tackling climate change and will provide a framework for action. It will introduce:

• ambitious targets of at least a 26% reduction in emissions by 2020, and at least a 60% reduction in emissions by 2050, with a requirement to review the 2050 target to see if it should be strengthened up to 80%;

• a new independent Committee on Climate Change, which is already working in shadow form, headed by Lord Adair Turner;

• new powers to introduce emissions trading to new sectors, which will be used to introduce the Carbon Reduction Commitment – a trading scheme for large energy users that are not in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme, such as supermarkets and government departments - that will save at least 4 million tonnes of CO2 a year by 2020 ;

• a new system of Carbon Budgets that will be set (for the first fifteen years) alongside the next spring Budget and ensure that we meet our targets;

• requirements for the Government to carry out a regular assessment of the risks that climate change poses to the UK, and to produce a programme addressing those risks.