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Ann Winterton (Congleton) (Ind Con): I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way in this very interesting debate. May I congratulate him on securing it and on the material that he has produced for it? Does he agree that changes in climate, affecting temperature and the salinity of seas, have been taking place for some time? He has just mentioned food, and those changes affect the location of fish. For example, we have seen cod leaving waters in Newfoundland because of the conveyor that he is discussing, and a change in the salinity of the water and the water temperature. All that must be taken into consideration in planning for the future.
Chris Ruane: I agree entirely with the hon. Lady. One scenario that Schwartz and Randell have outlined is the occurrence of wars over fishing rights, especially on the Iberian peninsula between Spain and Portugal—like the cod wars that we saw back in the '70s.
Schwarz and Randell also suggest research into geo-engineering—that is, the releasing of hydrofluorocarbons that will heat up the atmosphere
and compensate for the drop in temperatures. That needs to be approached very carefully, however, because there is no way of knowing exactly what impact such releases would have, and we could end up doing more harm than good.The research that Schwarz and Randell undertook was for the Pentagon and the US Government, and was supposed to influence US strategy and thinking on climate change. I doubt that it will change the policies of the current US Administration. President Bush has shown his contempt for a number of international agreements and initiatives, including the Kyoto protocol. He has imposed steel sanctions that have hit steel communities in UK, and created subsidies to US farmers that undercut farmers in the developing world and allow for dumping. He has also refused to join the International Criminal Court.
President Bush's father, George Bush senior, commissioned the international panel on climate change. George Bush junior set up a panel of the National Academy of Sciences to study global warming. George Bush junior dismissed the findings of both. He has now called for additional research to prove what the vast majority of climate change scientists already know: that the earth is getting warmer. This was described in The New York Times as a
- "redundant examination of issues that had largely been settled, bereft of vision, executable goals and timetables—in short little more than a cover up for inaction".
I summary, I call on the Minister dramatically to increase research budgets for research on the workings of the Atlantic conveyor, on developing renewable energy sources, and on improvements to developing cleaner fuels. I call on him to work collaboratively with other Departments to ensure that the UK is prepared for all eventualities, and I ask that the issue be raised at all international forums. I call upon the Minister, and indeed the Prime Minister, to do all that they can by making direct approaches to President Bush to end US inaction. I also urge the Minister and his colleagues to work in strong collaboration with Governments around the world to commission research on past and present climate change, and to draw up contingency plans for the rapid climate change that could end life as we know it in the UK and beyond.
6.17 pm
The Minister for the Environment (Mr. Elliot Morley): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane) on securing this debate and on raising some very serious issues. He has demonstrated his clear knowledge of, and interest in, them and I
listened to what he had to say with great interest. I agree with his points and acknowledge their seriousness. I shall certainly try to address them.I saw the press coverage of the Pentagon report, and I read it with considerable interest. Like my hon. Friend, I saw the assessment of the implications for national security in the United States and for a range of other matters. I take encouragement from the fact that such reports have been commissioned, which demonstrates that the United States recognises that there is a serious issue in relation to climate change. I also found it interesting that the Pentagon report recognised that no country will escape the effects of climate change, whether it is rich, poor, large or small. The implications are severe for us all, and they are global. That places a responsibility on those of us from the developed world and the industrial countries, which have of course been the biggest contributors to climate change, to understand what is happening in relation to the research and the science and take measures to tackle the problem.
My hon. Friend rightly addressed the question of what could happen if the north Atlantic drift, or the gulf stream as it is commonly known in our country, switched off. That is a possibility, and the work that has been done on the subject means that there is no denying it. Our best scientific assessments tell us that we can expect a slow-down rather than a complete shut-off of the gulf stream over this century. Up to 2050 at least, there will still be a net warming over the UK, as the cooling effect of the gulf stream's slow-down will not cancel out the warming effect of climate change due to increasing atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, although there will be an effect.
We know that the gulf stream has switched off in the past, so there is a sound basis for speculation about it slowing down or halting. We should be clear that further research and assessment are required. We also know that if it does switch off, scenarios of the kind that my hon. Friend painted are a possibility.
There are lessons there, particularly for that dwindling group of people who are sceptics on climate change. They are becoming increasingly isolated and clutch at straws, saying that there is no evidence for it. They are becoming the flat-earthers in the debate, given the overwhelming evidence being accumulated on what is happening.
My hon. Friend is right that the UK is a world leader in research on the issue. I refer in particular to research funded by my Department at the Hadley centre in Exeter, which is recognised as a world-leading institution in predicting the effects of climate change; the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science, which is based in Lowestoft; and the Natural Environment Research Council, which funded the rapid research programme to provide state-of-the-art analysis in simulation modelling and ocean monitoring. A great deal of work is going on and the UK will continue to lead on research on this important topic. We will use further evidence as it emerges in our ongoing planning for adaptation for climate change, as we have to consider the implications as well.
There have been some excellent presentations from the Hadley centre and the Tyndall centre, and I was privileged to present some of their findings to an international audience at the climate change conference
in Milan recently. They have made observations on weather patterns going back almost 1,000 years from what can be ascertained from ice core, peat and soil samples. Their research shows that there is a cycle of weather patterns over the centuries.Temperatures vary within a range from decade to decade and century to century, but the latest figure, which is taken not from sampling but from the weather patterns that we have been able to observe for the last few hundred years, shows that the range—the curve—increases dramatically. That curve completely changes from the cycles we have seen over many centuries. Something distinctive, radical and worrying is happening to our climate, and we cannot ignore that.
As a matter of interest, yesterday I was at a maritime research exhibition to launch the WaveNet programme, which has been developed by CEFAS. It involves a series of remote buoys around our coast that take real-time temperature, current and wave height samples. That excellent project can be accessed on the internet, and people can click on to individual buoys around the coast and be given a real-time reading of temperature and wave patterns. It is a fantastic facility that is available internationally and globally. Anyone who has access to the internet can access that data, which is a real step forward in sharing information and in understanding our knowledge.
I also saw work involving a satellite programme, in collaboration with the Met Office, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Ministry of Defence and a range of other institutions. Remote sensors are dropped internationally, all around the seas, and they sink, take temperature readings, resurface and transmit the data to the satellite, which transmits it back to our scientific research stations. That is world-class science at the cutting edge of our understanding.
We are keen to co-operate, and are working with a range of international bodies. I recently met American representatives to discuss climate monitoring, and they were keen to co-operate with us, as we are to work with them. The Hadley centre has developed a computer model based on its global predictions, which can apply to regions around the world. I have met Indian scientists who have taken the PRECIS—Providing Regional Climates for Impacts Studies—computer model and are applying it to the Indian subcontinent. The program predicts climate change implications, which are severe and include: flooding in Bangladesh and low-lying areas; drought, as my hon. Friend said; crop failure; and increase in disease, as disease-carrying mosquitoes spread into new areas because of changing temperatures. That is modelled by PRECIS, which is a useful tool and particularly helpful for developing countries that do not have the capacity to develop such sophisticated computer models themselves but can take
computer programs and apply them. They are doing a great deal of invaluable scientific work in their regions in helping us understand what is happening.I assure my hon. Friend that that work will continue. He will have heard the Chancellor's comments about the importance of science in his recent Budget announcement, and about how we need to continue the investment in our science and education base, because it is crucial. He will be aware of the Government's commitment to reducing CO2 and greenhouse gas emissions. We are recognised as world leaders both in what we are doing and in relation to our energy White Paper, which made clear our strategy for achieving those reductions. We are also the first country in the European Union to publish the national allocation plan for the European emissions trading scheme. We are well advanced in dealing with this issue.
We have set up the climate change impact programme to examine the potential effect on this country and ways in which we need to prepare for that, not just in reducing CO2 but through more research and development on environmental technologies, which includes renewable energy—as my hon. Friend said—clean transportation and clean fuel technology. All that work is ongoing, and we are collaborating with Japan, for example, on issues such as hydrogen fuel cell technology and transportation, and with many other countries.
I recently held a joint meeting with Sweden on environmental technologies, at which we called together a range of academics and companies to discuss how to develop new technologies for reducing energy and energy saving. We also set up REEEP—the renewable energy and energy efficiency programme—which is designed to be a global forum for sharing information on energy efficiency. The secretariat of REEEP, although it was set up by the UK, has now moved to Austria, where it is developing as an international organisation, with contributions from countries all over the world.
We have done a great deal on climate change, which is a real and serious threat to this country and all the countries of the world. Even if temperatures increase by the relatively small number of degrees projected, the impact will be considerable.
The hon. Member for Congleton (Ann Winterton) mentioned fish stocks. She is right that water temperature and the productivity of species such as cod are clearly linked. Although over-fishing has played a part in some declines, climate is certainly a factor.
This is a serious issue. My hon. Friend was right to raise it and has done the House a service. I hope that I have reassured him that we in the Government share his views and are prepared to act to combat what is one of the most serious global threats that we face.
- Adjourned accordingly at half-past Six o'clock.
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