Global Warming (Hansard, 28 June 1989)

§ 7. Mr. Wallace
To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make a statement on the effects of global warming.

§ Mr. Ridley
I hope that global warming will reduce Chamber warming.
The potential impacts of global warming and climate change are currently being reviewed and assessed by the intergovernmental panel on climate change, established under the United Nations environment programme and the World Meteorological Organisation last November. The panel will report in the autumn of 1990.

§ Mr. Wallace
I am sure the Secretary of State will agree that one of the important factors contributing to global warming is the destruction of many tropical rain forests. Is his Department encouraging and helping local authorities—many of them controlled by my party—that are trying to adopt purchasing policies to find alternatives to tropical hardwoods from non-sustainable sources?

§ Mr. Ridley
We must take this problem extremely seriously, and internationally. That is why we have proposed in the United Nations and in the United Nations environment programme general council that there should be a global framework convention on climate change, under which various protocols can be negotiated, including one on tropical rain forests. The right way forward is to involve all the nations of the world; our initiative in this field has been taken very seriously and has received a great deal of support. We cannot do this at only the national level, let alone at the local authority level.

§ Mr. Squire
I support what my right hon. Friend says about the inevitable international impact of this issue, but does he agree that the problem of carbon dioxide, which is not covered by the steps that have already been taken to control power station emissions, and which will be exacerbated by the catalyst solution for cars, remains one of the single most pressing problems?

§ Mr. Ridley
My hon. Friend is right. One of the worries is that the drive to improve nitrogen oxide emissions from motor vehicles and to reduce sulphur dioxide emissions from coal-fired power stations has the result of increased fuel consumption and hence increased emissions of carbon dioxide. I am afraid that carbon dioxide, which is the most important greenhouse gas, has become the Cinderella of environmental policies, and we must watch out and make sure that our policies have the effect of reducing, not increasing, carbon dioxide.

§ Mr. Allan Roberts
Does the Minister agree that only two thirds of the 50 per cent. of the CO₂ that goes into the environment comes from burning fossil fuel and that methane, chlorofluorocarbons, nitrous oxide and surface ozone are also significant contributory factors? Will he admit that the experts who attended the Prime Minister's special seminar on the greenhouse effect pointed out that a 15 per cent. reduction in carbon dioxide emissions, which a change of emphasis to nuclear power stations would produce, is three times less than the reduction that would take place from the major energy conservation initiatives that the Government not only refuse to contemplate but are cutting back on?

§ Mr. Ridley
The hon. Gentleman says that only two thirds of carbon dioxide comes from burning fossil fuels. Therefore, one would have thought that that would be the area where one would start to seek to make reductions. Secondly, since I was at the Prime Minister's seminar and he was not, may I tell him that his account of it is far from accurate.