CLIMATE CHANGE CONVENTION

HL Deb 27 July 1993 vol 548 cc113-4WA

Lord Judd

asked Her Majesty's Government:

When they plan to ratify the Climate Change Convention; whether they accept that this will entail an obligation to return greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2000; whether they will undertake to prevent emissions exceeding that level after the year 2000; and whether they will seek to diminish rapidly such emissions to below the 1990 levels.

Lord Strathclyde

The Government has undertaken to ratify the Climate Change Convention, along with our G7 and EC partners, by the end of this year. The convention commits developed country parties to aiming to return emissions of CO₂, and other greenhouse gases to their 1990 levels by the year 2000. The Government are drawing up a programme of measures intended to achieve that target. The convention provides for this commitment to be reviewed at the first meeting of its conference of parties, and again before the end of 1998. The Government will consider what further commitments the UK should make for emissions beyond 2000 in the context of those reviews.