Climate Change
Climate change is a major threat to our planet - and urgent action is needed. Liberal Democrats will provide UK leadership to reach agreement on a much more ambitious set of targets in the negotiations for the second commitment period of the Kyoto protocol and beyond. We will tackle traffic pollution by getting more people onto public transport. We will set a target for 30% of the UK's electricity to come from safe and renewable sources by 2020, rising up to 100% by 2050.
Background
Britain’s carbon emissions rose
last year under the EU carbon trading scheme designed to cut emissions,
according to figures released in Brussels and the Government have admitted that
they will not meet their domestic target of a 20% cut in carbon dioxide
emissions by 2010.
The overwhelming scientific consensus is that
the recent increases in global temperatures are not merely natural fluctuations
but mainly a result of man-made emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) which
increase the amount of energy absorbed by the atmosphere. The latest report of
the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in February 2007 has made
clear the urgency of our predicament on climate change. The report is a cautious
and consensual statement of the overwhelming scientific evidence that we have to
act quickly. Man-made climate change poses an increasing risk to people and
businesses across the globe. There will be disastrous consequences if we don’t
act now. The economic evidence, following the Stern Review, is clear – tackling
this challenge is both achievable and affordable.
There are a number of
greenhouse gases which contribute to climate change, but by far the most
significant for the UK is carbon dioxide (CO2). The UK is emitting almost four
times the current global average emissions, with an average of around 9.2 tonnes
of carbon dioxide per person.
Impacts of climate change are already
visible. According to the World Health Organisation 150,000 people already die
every year from climate change. Projections of future impacts obviously carry an
element of uncertainty, but many reputable forecasters have made predictions of
future impacts which deserve to be taken seriously. The IPCC in its February
2007 report suggested that average global temperatures will rise by between 1.1
and 6.4 degrees Celsius by 2100.
The Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction
and Research, in its December 2005 briefing on climate change and the greenhouse
effect, predicted that storm surges in the Thames Estuary and southern North Sea
will be a metre higher than at present by the 2080s and that high water events
which currently happen once in a hundred years will by the 2080s happen once
every seven years. It also notes that the Greenland Ice Sheet, containing water
equivalent to just over 7m of sea-level, would begin to reduce in size if summer
regional temperatures were to rise by about 3 degrees Celsius. This critical
temperature is predicted to be reached by the end of the century by most
combinations of climate models and future emissions scenarios.
The United
Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is a treaty signed at the 1992
'Earth Summit' in Rio. The treaty as originally framed set no mandatory limits
on greenhouse gas emissions for individual nations and contained no enforcement
provisions; it included provisions for further protocols that would set
mandatory emission limits.
The most important of these is the Kyoto
Protocol. Countries that ratify this protocol commit to reduce their emissions
of carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases, or engage in emissions
trading if they maintain or increase emissions of these gases. The Kyoto
Protocol now covers more than 163 countries and over 65% of global greenhouse
gas emissions. However, important developed economies including the USA and
Australia have not ratified.
At the UN meeting in Montreal in December
2005, all countries agreed to begin discussions on the way forward beyond 2012.
It is vital that all major countries are part of a future framework for action,
including the US and major developing economies like China, India and
Brazil.
What Liberal Democrats will do
Liberal Democrats
will provide UK leadership for an international framework that will enable each
country to manage the transition to a low carbon economy by reaching agreement
on a much more ambitious set of targets in the negotiations for the second
commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol and beyond. In the
short term, we would develop a post-2012 framework that allows different
countries to participate according to their national circumstances through a
multi-stage approach.
We will work for the establishment of an
International Leapfrog Fund to facilitate the development of low carbon
technologies, energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies in developing
countries.
We will set a target for 30 per cent of the UK’s electricity
to come from clean, non-carbon emitting sources by 2020, rising to 100 per cent
by 2050, providing new incentives for renewable energy sources and small-scale
micro-generation through guaranteed prices (‘feed-in tariffs’).
We will
require all new homes to be built to the GreenHouse standard no later than 2011
(this is the best known standard for building homes that require no fossil fuels
for their space heating) and introduce ‘WarmHomes’ packages of improvements
available for existing houses funded through ‘green mortgages’, which enable
people to use the savings from their lower energy use to pay back the cost of
the package through their quarterly energy bill.
We will develop a UK
national adaptation plan to educate individuals and businesses about what
adaptations are necessary in response to climate change and invest in flood
management systems.
We will introduce credible and predictable mechanisms
for pricing carbon by:
· Strengthening the EU Emissions Trading System
· Reforming Labour’s Climate Change Levy into a carbon tax
· Making a green tax switch by more steeply graduating Vehicle Excise Duty (VED) for new vehicles, based on carbon emissions and indexing fuel duty to GDP growth except in periods of oil price spikes, using the revenue to cut income tax.
