HC Deb 31 October 1989 vol 159 cc117-8W
Dr. Thomas

To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment (1) if he will make a statement on initiatives he plans to promote in response to the conclusions of the Commonwealth expert group on climate change and sea level rise, in respect of Her Majesty's Government's policies on mitigation of the greenhouse effect;

(2) if he, or any other Minister or official of his Department, was present at, or presented a paper to, the seminar on the greenhouse effect at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers on 29 September;

(3) what departmental representation there was, and what departmental papers were presented, at the global conference on the greenhouse effect, co-sponsored by the United Nations environment programme, held in Japan in September.

Mr. Heathcoat-Amory

We welcome the contribution that the report of the Commonwealth expert group makes to the debate on climate change, and we recognise the particular concern of some Commonwealth countries about a potential rise in sea-levels. The Langkawi declaration on the environment which followed the recent Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting supported the work of the intergovernmental panel on climate change and endorsed the United Kingdom's call for an international convention on climate change. We are fully committed to the work of the IPCC, in which the United Kingdom is playing a leading role, and we will continue to press the case for a framework convention on climate change.

There was no ministerial representation at the IME seminar on 29 September. An official from the Building Research Establishment presented a paper entitled "Energy Efficiency in Buildings and the Greenhouse Effect."

There was no departmental representation at the conference on the global environment and human response held in Tokyo on 11 to 13 September 1989.

Mr. Barry Field

To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how his Department differentiates between global warming caused by(a) natural and (b) man-made changes; what information he has on the reasons for global temperature rises before chlorofluorocarbons; and if his Department has made an appraisal of the thesis on global warming of Doctor Bruce Denness of the Bureau of Applied Sciences.

Mr. Heathcoat-Amory

There is a "natural" greenhouse effect caused by the earth's atmosphere without which the earth would not be habitable. Current concerns arise from the increase in the concentration of anthropogenic greenhouse gases including carbon dioxide and the chlorofluorocarbons. The impact of those increases, and the effects which will flow from them, are the subject of intensive scientific review within the intergovernmental panel on climate change which is due to report next summer. I understand that report is unlikely to endorse the views of Dr. Denness.