Campaigners’ advice ‘largely unheeded’, says Caroline Lucas

The UK’s landmark Climate Change Bill has the potential to provide an exemplary framework for the rest of the world, but its terms are hampered by illogical reasoning and lack of political will.

The UK will be the first country in the world to put a framework for reducing carbon dioxide emissions into law – and not before time. We know more about the devastating effects of climate change with each passing day, thanks to intensive scientific research into global warming. What’s more, the argument is no longer just a ‘green’ one. The Stern Report set out the economic case when it warned that unchecked climate change would create 200 million environmental refugees and cost £3.6 trillion – pushing the world into economic depression.

Some strengthening
 
It is largely thanks to the innovative efforts of Friends of the Earth and a coalition of green campaigners, women’s organisations and faith groups that a UK Bill designed to tackle climate catastrophe head-on came into existence. Through setting annual targets for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions until 2050, it was hoped that the government would commit to reducing emissions by an average of at least three per cent every year.
 
The process of consultation, providing an opportunity for the public to engage with the terms of new legislation and make suggestions that can help shape policy proposals, is a vital part of the democratic process. Yet as far as the Climate Change Bill was concerned, the advice offered by environmental campaigners – and by the government’s own Committees – during the three-month period has gone largely unheeded. And while pressure from green groups has led to a strengthening of some of the weakest proposals, the resulting Bill simply fails to go far enough.

Target incoherent

Despite the overwhelming support during consultation for an increase in the UK’s CO2 reduction target from 60 per cent to 80 per cent at the very least by 2050, the Bill’s target of 60 per cent has remained the same. Gordon Brown continues to dither over the figure, agreeing to place it under review and coyly implying in a 2007 speech that it may or may not be increased at a later date. Putting legislative action on climate change at the heart of British politics is pointless if the targets that are set are not meaningful.

Even the government’s own Environmental Audit Committee called the 60 per cent target incoherent and demanded a stronger figure. For the UK to play its part in keeping global temperatures from rising two degrees above pre-industrial levels – the temperature rise recognised by the EU as a ‘danger level’ – it must reduce emissions by an absolute minimum of 80 per cent by 2050. Green groups and government committees agree – the current target is no longer considered to be a sufficient contribution by a developed country.

Exclusion of aviation and shipping

Another area of serious weakness revealed during consultation was the exclusion of international aviation and shipping emissions from the reduction target. Green campaigners proposed that all CO2 emissions from these sections should be included in the measured emissions. The government might think it has covered its back with the inclusion of aviation in the European Union’s Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), but this is in itself is fraught with loopholes and made ineffective by weakened proposals.
 
Shockingly, the government has also stuck to its original proposal for five-year carbon budgets and targets, even though as many as 97 per cent of consultees called for annual targets. If targets cover more than one government’s term in office, a government could avoid action, knowing that its successor would have to account for missed targets. An annual carbon budget is what is really required to ensure emissions reductions occur across all sectors of the economy, promote low carbon enterprise, and deliver an overall reduction.

Mixed picture

All in all, the Climate Change Bill is a significant step forward in the efforts to stave off environmental catastrophe and, in part, succeeds in addressing the need for legally binding reduction targets and more transparent reviews of our achievements. Nevertheless, with the eyes of the world upon us, it is crucial that politicians prove they have the resolve to set tough, binding annual greenhouse gas reduction targets and to radically reform an economic system that is currently leading to ever more emissions. Climate change is primarily not a scientific or technical challenge, but a challenge of political will. Evidence to date suggests that this is something the government sadly lacks. 

Caroline Lucas MEP is the Green member of the European Parliament for South-East England