Examination of Witnesses (Questions 75
- 79)
MONDAY 14 MAY 2007
MR MARTYN
WILLIAMS AND
MS RUTH
DAVIS
Q75 Chairman: We welcome from Friends
of the Earth, Martyn Williams. Mr Williams, what precisely is
your position in the organisation?
Mr Williams: I am the Senior Parliamentary
Campaigner for Friends of the Earth.
Q76 Chairman: And Ruth Davis, the
Head of Climate Change Policy for the Royal Society for the Protection
of Birds. Both of you welcome in your evidence having a legislative
solution to this problem and I am sure you heard the previous
evidence session with some of the reservations that witnesses
put forward about measurement targets, direction of travel and
particularly the interesting question of sanction if things go
wrong. Having heard that critique and appraisal, are you still
just as enthusiastic, Mr Williams, about having a piece of legislation
or would you rather have plans that worked?
Mr Williams: As the previous witnesses
said, it is not an either/or, it is both. Legislation, which nobody
then does anything about or introduces any policies or plans is
clearly pointless. We still welcome the fact that there is a Bill
and a Bill has been brought forward and that Parliament and everybody
who is now involved in this consultation process has the opportunity
to make that Bill robust and to make that Bill work, but we do
not welcome all of the words that are in this current Bill because
of some of the problems that previous witnesses outlined. The
biggest worry of all is the one that the Tyndall Centre outlined
and I was personally very pleased to see this Committee beginning
its whole evidence session by looking at the science of what we
need to do about climate change. When we at Friends of the Earth
first started the whole process of thinking about a climate change
bill that is exactly where we started. We thought: what is the
challenge, what does need to be done, what is the maximum temperature
and concentration and therefore emissions we can afford and how
can we frame a piece of legislation that gives us the framework
to live within that? It is exactly right that you have begun your
evidence sessions in the same way and it means following through
on that and making sure that this Bill changes from what it is
now, which is the right idea of a legal framework, to one which
has the right numbers in it and the right sanctions and so on
to make sure we have confidence in it as well.
Q77 Chairman: Okay. A brief word
Ruth Davis on that line?
Ms Davis: I broadly agree with
everything that Martyn says and it is too easy to dismiss the
legal instruments and some of the discussion earlier was rather
negative about the framework. The fact that we have a budgetary
framework in legislation is a really genuine step forward and
it gives us an opportunity to think about actual amounts of carbon
going up into the atmosphere and manage policies accordingly in
a way which has not happened previously. The framework and the
exposure to public scrutiny and parliamentary scrutiny that come
from having brought the Bill forward are very important.
Q78 Chairman: So you will be looking
for legislation to underpin the target for farmland birds will
you?
Ms Davis: I would be absolutely
delighted. Is that an offer on the table?
Q79 Lynne Jones: Given the evidence
we have just heard about the importance of the 2°C rise in
temperature target, what is a more realistic target? You have
said the 60% is not, so what are we looking at?
Mr Williams: We asked Tyndall
to do that work for us. The fundamental thing is that is not the
end point: it is about living within this budget. The budget they
gave to us was between 4.5 and 5 billion tonnes of carbon in the
first half of this century. There are different lines on the graph
that you can draw to live within that budget. The first seven
years are drawn because, if you look through them, we have emitted
that carbon. From hereon in you can make different assumptions.
We cannot see any scenario whatsoever in which the 2050 target
should be lower than an 80% cut. We cannot see any way in which
you can live within the carbon budget which we have got with a
lower target than 80%, unless you say something stupid like we
could make a 60% cut tomorrow and live at that level for the rest
of this 50-year period. The target has to be a minimum of 80%
but really it is not that 2050 target which all parties—and
I admit Friends of Earth and other NGOs—have made so much
of in recent years. It is not the end target that matters; it
is the shape of the line and the area beneath the curve.
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