The Government has suffered two key defeats on its flagship Climate Change Bill.

Liberal Democrat Environment Spokesman in the Lords, Lord Teverson, introduced two successful amendments to the Bill. The first imposes limits on how many ‘carbon credits’ the UK will be able to purchase from abroad. The second strengthens parts of the Bill that deal with tackling the effects of climate change that are already occurring - known as adaptation.

Introducing his first amendment, Lord Teverson said:

“My Lords, we come to an important principle in the Bill: the Government’s concept of the UK carbon account. As noble Lords will know, that does not target actual UK emissions but UK net emissions plus or minus the trade in carbon permits from abroad, whether through the European system or some of the other Kyoto mechanisms. The amendment is intended to put a limit on the number of those foreign credits included in the UK carbon account.”

Lord Teverson explained why his proposal was needed:

“The amendment does not go as far as existing government targets and say that no international credits shall be counted towards the UK carbon account and the targets in the Bill. However, we are saying that they should be reasonably limited. The amendment says in a sober and reasonable way that 70 per cent of the effort to decarbonise our economy and meet those targets must be met within the United Kingdom. That is fundamental to the understanding of the Bill in the country and within the global community, and reflects what the Government and Ministers themselves wish to do.

“Because this is such an important principle, it needs to be in the Bill. It has to be clear in the Bill that there is a limit to the amount of decarbonisation of the UK economy that can take place by subcontracting it to the rest of the world while we carry on emitting carbon dioxide and the other greenhouse gases to our heart's content, to any degree that we want, as long as, somehow, by the end of the budget period, we fix that by purchasing credits from abroad. That is not what the Bill is about.

“We recognise that international effort is important; our contribution towards that is important. That is why there is no prohibition in the amendment. The amendment would not stop the Government purchasing as many international credits as they want to assist developing countries or other parts of the world to decarbonise their economies; it means that after a certain limit, they would not be counted towards the targets. That is all that the amendment does.”

Click here to read Lord Teverson’s speech in full
Click here to read Lord Teverson’s final comments on the amendment
The Lords voted in favour of the amendment, 179 for and 147 against

Lord Teverson then proposed his second amendment, on the need for a separate sub-committee specifically to deal with issues relating to adaptation to climate change:

“[P]eople in the environmental movement are clear that adaptation to climate change is as important as mitigation. It is a regrettable fact that many of the consequences of climate change will continue to be felt even if we ceased emitting carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases immediately - hence the urgency to introduce mitigating measures. There is a time lag of between 100 and 200 years in that regard. Therefore, adaptation is incredibly important and is the reason these amendments were tabled. They stand in my name and those of other noble Lords from other sides of the House. The United Kingdom needs to focus on adaptation through this Bill.

“I listened carefully to the debate we had on this issue in Committee and redrafted the amendments as a result. At that stage we wanted to have an ad hoc adaptation committee entirely separate from the rest of the machinery in the Bill. On reflection, we decided that our proposal was flawed and have therefore redrafted the amendment to place even greater emphasis on adaptation. Clearly, the best way to do that is to include it in one of the Bill’s main structures; namely, the Committee on Climate Change.

“The Bill provides for sub-committees of the climate change committee but is not specific about them, nor about who should be on them or what subjects they should tackle. We think that there should be a sub-committee specifically concerned with adaptation and that it needs to be separate from the committee because the subjects that it will tackle, its goals and the assessments it will need to make require very different skills than those required to tackle mitigation. Therefore, while we adopt a holistic approach in bringing mitigation and adaptation together under the climate change committee, it is very important to have a separate sub-committee to tackle adaptation. The amendment states very clearly the skills and expertise that members of that sub-committee will require.”

Click here to read Lord Teverson’s speech in full
Click here to read Lord Teverson’s final comments on the amendment
The Lords voted in favour of the amendment, 160 for and 137 against