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In November 2006, we sent copies of Robert Henson’s Rough Guide to Climate Change to every MP in the UK. The book gets you up to speed on the world’s number one concern, quickly and painlessly, and we wanted MPs to share in that. We also wanted to take the opportunity to find out what they thought about climate change, so we asked them three basic questions:
1 How important a concern is climate change?
2 What can Britain do to make a difference?
3 What steps do you plan to take (or have you taken), in your constituency, and as an individual?
… along with a commitment to print some of the responses in The Independent.
MPs are not renowned for responding to surveys, yet nearly half the house – 318 of our elected representatives – felt strongly enough to break the habit, all the main party leaders among them. Click on the button below and you can read all the replies in full.
About the replies
The MPs’ replies show a Parliament almost unanimous in its belief that this is the major issue, bar none (Scottish MP Brian Donohoe is a lone sceptic among our respondents, looking forward to a warmer garden). The overall tone was maybe best captured by Richard Benyon (Newbury, Conservative): “Climate Change is the defining issue of our age. Previous generations had to deal with the rise of Nazism or communism. This is the issue on which my generation of politicians will be judged. This is our Dunkirk.”
The MPs are equally clear that Britain, the world's fourth largest economy, must take a lead. They are stack-full of ideas for this – about energy use and generation, appliances, water, and notably cars and flights – and clamouring for a climate change bill, with teeth.
It's not all just fine words, either. MPs like Frank Field, with his CoolEarth (coolearth.org) campaign to save rainforest, or Colin Challen, who has driven the issue onto the parliamentary agenda with his All Party Climate Change Group, have already taken decisive action. And this is accompanied by a house (or, perhaps, half a house) that is consciously going green in its own behaviour. Most MPs write about actions they have taken in their own lives to reduce energy use and carbon emissions. Hats off to Alan Simpson (Nottingham, Labour): “Personally, I have designed and constructed my own eco-home, which generates more electricity than it consumes.”
They want Britain to set an example, and they are eager to show that individual action can play a part. Or, at least, most of them are.
Which party is the greenest?
If you take our responses as a guide, the LibDems care the most: 57 responded, with just 6 absentees. And David Cameron has clearly had an effect on the Conservatives: 115 replied, 81 didn't. Labour was much less impressive, with 141 respondents but 214 absentees (most notably Gordon Brown, despite repeated calls to his office). And climate change doesn't seem to be making much impact on Northern Ireland politics, with not a single response from any DU or Sinn Fein representative
And now the world ...
We intend to repeat this exercise by sending copies of the book and seeking responses from every member of the US Senate. And as the book is published in France, Germany, Italy and Spain, we will be looking to do similar surveys among their representatives. Watch this space …
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Climate change: an FAQ
Most MPs see Britain as leading the way on climate change measures, and shaping up well to its Kyoto commitments. Are they right? Here are a few salient FAQs from The Rough Guide to Climate Change:
What is the UK's percentage of world emissions?
The 2% figure often cited is quite sound. The global total of CO2 emissions is around 27 Gt (gigatons, or billions of tons) per year, and the UK emits about 570 Mt (million tons). So it's a shade over 2%, and should hold for a few years even as global emissions continue to rise slowly but steadily.
Is the UK on target to meet its Kyoto targets?
The UK's Kyoto target is a 12.5% reduction from 1990 levels by 2012. As of 2004, the most recent year for which data are available, UK emissions were about 14% lower than in 1990, so at first glace it seems that we're definitely on target. However, most of those reductions were made in the 1990s, since when there's been no clear downward trend, with emissions actually rising slightly in 2003 and 2004. So at this point, it's still by no means certain.
If we met our Kyoto targets, would that be enough?
No. For one thing, Kyoto targets don't include international aviation and shipping. If you factor these in, UK emissions are higher today than in 1990. Moreover, the Kyoto targets are only a first step. In the longer term, there's no consensus on what global emissions reductions would be sufficient to avoid climate chaos. The UK government's target is a comparatively ambitious 60% cut by 2050. However, even this may not be enough. Writer George Monbiot, for example, maintains that to avoid disastrous climate feedbacks, we need a global emissions cut of 60% by 2030. If that's true, and the right to emit was divided up by population, the UK would have to reduce its emissions by 86% in just 23 years.
What's my carbon footprint?
This is the new buzzword: your carbon footprint is the amount of CO2 you produce in a year. The average Briton is responsible for 11.6 tonnes a year (Americans produce 55.9 tonnes; Africans less than 1 tonne). Your footprint consists mainly of household heating (20%), personal travel (29%), and manufacture of the goods you buy (40%).
How significant is air travel?
Emissions from aviation account for around 2–3% of all greenhouse gases, but its overall impact is greater (perhaps 2–3 times greater) due to factors including the altitude at which the gases are released and the clouds formed from aircraft exhaust. So the real figure may be as high as 8–9% – around three times greater than the emissions from entire African continent. Most worrying is how quickly aviation is growing: its influence is set to become even more outsized in the years and decades to come. And for every return flight you might make from London to New York you add as much as an extra tonne to your carbon footprint.
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