§ Mr. SheermanTo ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what estimate her Department has made of the economic cost to the United Kingdom of global warming if the Kyoto Agreement is not fully implemented by all signatory countries. [63509]
§ Mr. MeacherThe costs to Annex 1 parties, including the UK, of meeting their emissions reduction and limitation commitments under the Kyoto protocol have been estimated as a reduction of less than 0.7 per cent. of GDP in 2010 according to assessments assessed by the Inter-Government Panel on Climate Change. If countries do not fully implement their commitments, this will have an adverse effect on the scale of the global effort to tackle climate change which could result in greater adverse impacts. Given uncertainties, these are not possible to quantify.