Climate change bill revisions a 'fudge'
29 October 2007
NEWS: Green Party in England & Wales
'LOW LEVEL TARGETS THAT WE ARE NOT LIKELY TO MEET DO NOT CONSTITUTE RADICAL ACTOIN ON CLIMATE CHANGE'
Green Party Principal Speaker Dr. Caroline Lucas MEP has accused the government of 'fudging and stalling' on action to cut our emissions, and so failing on climate change.
Criticising the Government's response to the 3 month public consultation on the draft Climate Change Bill, Caroline said:
"The Government have announced - again - that they will ask the yet to be established Committee on Climate Change to report on whether their 60 per cent reduction in emissions by 2050 target should be strenthghened.
"Not only is the 60 per cent target woefully inadequate and too distant, (research by the Tyndall centre has shown) it's also more likely to contribute to a world 4 or 5 degrees warmer than pre- industrial times, than it is to constrain warming to no more than 2 degrees. (1)
"It's criminally irresponsible to adopt a target that not only flies in the face of science, but also undermines the UK's commitment to making a fair contribution to limiting average global temperature increases to no more than 2 degrees - scientists say anything higher will have disastrous consequences.
"The Government is sleepwalking into a climate disaster, and we need strong leadership and radical action to avoid its worst impacts.
"After a decade of rising emissions, it seems clear that Labour have neither to offer.
"Brown is as content as Blair to continue fudging and stalling on cutting on our emissions, and so the UK continues to fail on climate change.
"This bill is dangerously unambitious. Creating a legal framework for tackling carbon dioxide emissions in the UK is a massive opportunity, but to start with the wrong target is to fall at the first hurdle.
"Low level targets that we are not likely to meet do not constitute radical action on climate change.
"We need a Climate Change Bill which sets binding emissions-reduction targets of at least 6 per cent a year to allow us to achieve cuts in UK GHG emissions ii the region of 90 per cent by 2030. This is the level of cuts required for us - in a framework of contraction and convergence - to play a fair role in delivering the global cuts needed to stabilise atmospheric CO2 at 450 parts per million."
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