HC Deb 25 October 1989 vol 158 cc460-1W
Dr. Thomas

To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment (1) if he has made any assessment of the claimed benefits of the greenhouse effect, made by the Soviet climatologist, Mikhail Budyko, in a paper to the United Nations environment programme in August;

if his Department has made any assessment of the recent analysis by Dr. John Woods of the Marine and Atmospheric Sciences Division for the Natural Environment Research Council suggesting that the onset timescale for the greenhouse effect has been significantly underestimated;

(3) what study has been made by his Department, or under consultancy to his Department, of the plankton multiplier effect on the level that global warming may reach following the greenhouse effect.

Mrs. Virginia Bottomley

Each of these matters is for consideration in the international review of climate change science being carried out by working group I of the intergovernmental panel on climate change (IPCC). This work is being led by the United Kingdom under the chairmanship of Dr. John Houghton, director general of the Meteorological Office and supported by funds totalling over £600,000 from the Departments of the Environment and Energy.

Dr. Thomas

To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what initiatives he introduced to the Council of European Environmental Ministers to combat the greenhouse effect, at its meeting on 19 September.

Mrs. Virginia Bottomley

At the Council meeting on 19 September, my right hon. Friend continued to take the lead in initiatives for the conservation of tropical forests. In particular, he supported the redeployment of resources within the European Commission towards forestry, advocated the need for close collaboration with developing countries in taking forward projects for the sustainable management of forest resources, and expressed the hope that other EC countries would support the United Kingdom initiative at the Council of the International Tropical Timber Organisation for a feasibility study on an EC-wide labelling scheme for tropical timber imports.