13:30 Andrew Miller (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)

The Committee published its report in March. In it, we examined the level of understanding among the public of climate change; what voices the public trust for information; how understanding could be improved; and the role of the media and the Government in so doing. Our inquiry was prompted by our concern about the mismatch between the public’s understanding of climate change and its causes and the Government’s, which is reflected in many Government policies. We concluded that there is an urgent need for action.

The results of the Department of Energy and Climate Change’s tracking survey in March showed that although only 35% of respondents thought that climate change was caused mainly or entirely by human activity, 68% were very or fairly concerned about it. However, when respondents were asked to explain how or why, most failed to give a clear answer. More worryingly, many are still unaware of the high level of scientific consensus that climate change is significant and that it is caused by human activity.

Why is that, when the basic science has been well understood for many years? Each of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s five reports since 1990 has been increasingly confident about not only the causes of climate change, but the impacts that the planet is experiencing. The latest report says:

“Human influence on the climate system is clear. This is evident from the increasing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere”

“Continued emissions of greenhouse gases will cause further warming and changes in all components of the climate system. Limiting climate change will require substantial and sustained reductions of greenhouse gas emissions.”

The Select Committee on Energy and Climate Change’s inquiry in July concluded that the IPCC findings are based on

Despite that unequivocal scientific foundation, the IPCC’s processes still attract some criticism. It is not helpful to label those critics of the processes as “sceptics” or “deniers”, but the existence of that vocal minority is likely to reflect a much wider concern among the public in general that will require attention if the Government are indeed committed, as I believe they are, to their climate change policies.

The Committee was interested in where those critical of the IPCC process and the Government’s approach to climate change sought information and how those who were not actively engaged in the issue brought themselves up to speed. When people are asked where they get their information about science and climate change, the most common answer they give is the media—television, in particular. It was, therefore, somewhat disappointing that the BBC, The Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail all initially refused to provide evidence to our inquiry—it was not particularly surprising, though, as those three organisations have regularly been criticised for their inaccuracies or their failure to ensure balance when reporting on climate science.

I would go further. I want everyone, not only people here in Parliament, to engage in the debate about climate policies that affect us. We have done that with other environmental subjects over the years. Think of some recent changes and campaigns ranging from those to clean up beaches to those to improve recycling and so on. They were done through a great deal of public engagement, but we do not seem to be as effective in respect of climate change policies.

Bearing that in mind, we were surprised that the Royal Society was also, originally, reluctant to contribute to our inquiry. We were disappointed to find a limited effort on the society’s part to communicate with the public on the issue, with no public meetings since 2010. It had, however, published a briefing on the science in February this year and held a meeting in July on the physics of climate change. That is in stark contrast to the sterling work of the society’s president, Sir Paul Nurse, who has spoken strongly in support of climate scientists and climate science. We welcome the efforts of the president, but would like to see more effort from the Royal Society itself, a publicly funded scientific body, to engage directly and inform the public at large.

If scientists should talk science, it is obvious that politicians should talk the politics. For a policy issue that crosses so many political boundaries, a coherent message from all Ministers and their associated organisations is important. We found, however, little evidence during our inquiry of any significant co-ordination in Government or among Government agencies and bodies at national or local levels to communicate the implications of the science. That is despite the evidence that what the public want is clear, consistent communication and leadership from the Government on climate change. As far as the public are concerned, the most important communicator about climate change is the Government. At the moment, we think that they are failing.

Last year, a communications capability review of the Department of Energy and Climate Change found, unsurprisingly, that DECC had one of the smallest communications teams in Whitehall—it had been reduced too heavily in 2010—and that there was a clear need for a head of communication, a role that had been left vacant for more than two years before being filled in August. Unfortunately, after another gap, the post was refilled only two weeks ago.

It is difficult not to conclude that the Government’s failure to ensure adequate resources and continuity for the Department’s communications team may explain their inability to present a clear narrative about climate change, as indicated in our report. That lack of effective communication about climate change needs to be a priority for the new head of communication, as should the proper provision of resources have been. I hope that the Minister will comment on that.

We were also told that the Department would be improving the presentation of climate science on gov.uk—not much has happened—and that it would establish a science expert communications group and a cross-Government climate change communications group. I would like to know what has happened to that proposal. When are the groups going to start communicating? Will they have a mechanism to communicate with Members with regard to our role of communicating with our constituents? The Government were also to publish a joint communication with learned societies and national academies.

Those are all welcome, positive steps in the right direction, but there is little, if any, evidence of progress. We are told that a climate narrative is still due shortly, as is the update of gov.uk. The only development is that there is now a cross-Government climate change communications group, but details are minimal and we do not know how frequently it meets, what it discusses or with whom it communicates—is it just with Ministers or with the broader civil service? Is it intended to engage with Parliament? I would also be interested to know what is on its agenda.

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13:53 Graham Stringer (Labour)

Every witness was asked for their definition of climate change and the answers were interesting. The Committee concluded that the best definitions of climate change were given by Professor Slingo of Reading university and the Met Office and Professor Rapley. Basically, they talked about the energy imbalance in the earth and the disruption to the climate. We thought they gave good definitions.

We would have expected the Department to have a definition that the Minister understood, or at least had one at its finger tips. I am pleased to see the new Minister in her place, but I have to say that one of the crassest statements I have ever heard from a Minister at a Select Committee—I have served on many Select Committees over the past 17 years—was when the previous Minister of State was asked for his definition of climate change. He said:

“Climate change is climate change.”

“Climate change is a change in climate.”

“However, we also note that the term ‘climate change’ does not apply just to the physical manifestation of a changing climate, but also actions to address human influence on the climate.”

“For example, the scientific definition of ‘climate change’ based on Professors Slingo’s and Rapley’s definition does not explain the use of ‘climate change’ in the acronym ‘DECC’. In this case ‘climate change’ means not just the physical manifestation but also steps taken in the UK and internationally to reduce”

greenhouse gas emissions

The first thing the Government should do if they want to communicate effectively on what climate change is and what they mean by it is to agree on a definition and what action is required. The Government do not agree and give the definition of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, but they want to extend that as well. That is an unsatisfactory position for any Government and it is not surprising that climate science and climate change is not communicated effectively if Ministers, scientific advisers and the Department do not agree on the same words.

One statement is that there is consensus on climate science and climate change. That is sometimes used to close down debate. The Science Media Centre said:

“Climate change is real and man made.”

We heard that in a number of forms throughout the Committee’s hearings. A previous Minister said that the consensus is now beyond debate and that the BBC should not be interviewing people who do not accept it. It is worth looking at the consensus and at what it means. I will quote evidence that was given not to our Committee, but to the Select Committee on Energy and Climate Change.

Basically, Guenier’s view was that anyone who believes that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and has some influence is part of that consensus. That is not really where the argument is. He then moves on to two other studies, discounting the statistic of 97% and looking at a survey by the American Meteorological Society. It is worth quoting from that because, again, the previous Minister did not like it. It states:

Therefore, the debate on this issue relies on a belief that 97% of scientists believe there will be some climate catastrophe because of extra carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The evidence from scientific literature does not support that 97%.

“There are disputes in the scientific community. We have to have an open attitude to the scientific research. There’s an alternative view that climate change is caused by cyclical trends in nature itself. We have to keep an open attitude.”

He is not an obscure scientist. When people say there is consensus that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and has an impact on the climate, the evidence does not extend to the belief that carbon dioxide will do major damage to the planet.

Last week, Steven E. Koonin—again, he is not an obscure scientist, but was the Under Secretary of Energy for Science, in the United States Department of Energy, and one of Obama’s senior scientific advisers—made a statement. By profession, he is a computational physicist. He clearly makes the point that there is consensus that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, but the real question he believes should be answered is:

“How will the climate change over the next century under both natural and human influence?”

The models cannot, by and large, reproduce the current situation and they imperfectly represent the past. There are huge, detailed differences between the 55 models that the IPCC uses. Rather than looking across the piece and seeing whether there is a consensus among scientists on the big issue—which there is not—if we look in detail at the modellers who are at the core of the climate change debate, we find that because they make different adjustments in their models, there is no consensus there either, and there are often huge differences in their predictions.

Because the BBC is criticised from both sides, it has made real efforts to improve its coverage of climate science and climate change, but I am not convinced that it has got it right. It asked for a report from Professor Steve Jones, who is a well respected professor of genetics—I am slightly in awe of Professor Jones when it comes to genetics; I have read his books, and he is a brilliant man and a good communicator.

However, to go back to the debate that my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston was having about whether climate scientists should be the people to talk about climate science on the BBC, Professor Jones was an odd person to choose to advise the BBC on climate science. We had a private meeting with him—which was interesting, because I was a bit star-struck on meeting him—and I did not think his answers were really adequate, because he was looking at secondary and tertiary phenomena. He seemed to think the fact that the Thames gate had been raised more times than was predicted was in some way evidence that global warming and climate change was happening, and I do not think it is. Rather, it is evidence that the gate has had to be raised a number of times. One of the interesting facts about climate change is that, with all the extra carbon dioxide that has been put into the atmosphere, the rise in sea level, which is about a foot a century, has continued at almost exactly the same rate.

It is true that the media, as I said at the beginning, tend to be ignorant of science, and I cannot leave this subject without giving two examples. One is slightly old. “The World This Weekend”, a few years ago, put the tsunami in Thailand down to climate change, which would be a surprise to most scientists and geologists. A few weeks ago, The Times , in one of its editorials, declared carbon dioxide to be a pollutant. Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. Without carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, we would all be dead. Plants need carbon dioxide; we need plants—end of story. It is not a pollutant. The amount in the atmosphere goes up and down. That just indicates how bereft of scientific training many journalists are.

I want to finish with two points. This is a serious debate. It is disappointing that so few hon. Members are present. A great deal of Government expenditure is based on a belief that there will be catastrophic climate change. The evidence for that is very limited. All energy policies should include the following. Security of energy supply, so that the lights do not go out, is the top priority. Cost to the consumer, both industry and the individual, is the second priority; and the third priority is how much carbon dioxide and pollutants are being put into the atmosphere.

There is that kind of vilification on one side and there is the vilification of Lord Lawson, who is not of my political party. He has tried to enhance the debate, particularly on the policy side. He has said—I would not go quite this far with him—“Accept that climate change is happening as people say. What is the right policy response?” I think he has enhanced that debate, but, again, he comes in for a great deal of vilification from the other side. If we are to understand the science better and to get better policies than we have at the moment, that nastiness, which should not be part of any political discussion and certainly any scientific discussion, should cease.

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14:27 Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)

Unsurprisingly, our Committee has spent a lot of time looking at climate science and climate change. The overarching theme that comes out of virtually all our inquiries is that looking at environmental issues, from whatever perspective, should not be a matter for just one Department, one business, one sector or one section of the media to deal with. It needs to be brought together in a cross-cutting way. It seemed to me that the conclusions of the Science and Technology Committee report were doing just that, so I felt that it was important to come along and take part in the debate.

Climate change is the most important issue that we face locally, nationally and internationally, so it is strategically important that we communicate the science of climate change in as robust a way as possible, having regard to the facts. After that, what matters is policy, and the support that politicians receive for those policies. If we do not have the trust of the British public for the policies that we want to implement on climate change and climate science, we will not get the policy outcomes that we so urgently require. That is why I had misgivings when I was listening to my hon. Friend the Member for Blackley and Broughton.

“man-made climate change is one of the most serious threats that this country and this world face.” —[ Official Report , 26 February 2014; Vol. 576, c. 255.]

If Members of Parliament, let alone members of the public, have no awareness of the science of climate change, we will not have the public trust that we need to achieve the required outcomes. I do not think that future generations will forgive us if we do not achieve those outcomes, because the clock is ticking. Indeed, Lord Prescott talked about stopping the clock in the negotiations that took place in Durban. We are in an urgent situation, and I believe that the overall recommendation in the report—that the Government must communicate climate science—is exactly what is needed to bolster and support the international discussions.

For that reason, I hope that the Minister—I welcome her to her new position—will set out whether and how the Government will draw up a climate change communication strategy and ensure that it is implemented consistently across Departments. Perhaps she could give us more detail than was provided in the Government’s response to the report. As part of that work, will she have further talks with other bodies, especially the BBC? We have heard a lot about the BBC, and many Members have met and challenged the corporation about its inclination to run with controversial stories rather than taking on board existing climate science, saying that there is a problem and asking what should be done about it. That would be the proper focus for discussion.

We are talking about a huge subject. We have seen from situations such as the floods and the take-up of the green deal that there is insufficient public awareness and understanding to support the necessary policies. Education is key, and it is not possible without a communication strategy. Whatever the politics inside the Select Committee when this unanimous report was agreed, I hope that because of the evidence submitted to the Committee and the urgency of the need to address climate change issues, a long-term benefit of the report will be a wider response from the Government in addition to their written response.

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14:38 Julie Elliott (Sunderland Central) (Lab)

As ever, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alan. I congratulate the Chair of the Science and Technology Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Andrew Miller), on securing this important debate. I am not a scientist, but listening to the two members of the Select Committee, I could see where some of the problems lie. Much of the language in discussions about climate change science is not very usable for the average person on the street. Sitting here and listening, we sometimes struggle to understand exactly what is being said. That is part of the problem.

The debate is timely, as there are two events with huge ramifications for the UK taking place in the next year. The first is the general election, and the second is the United Nations climate change conference in Paris. It is essential to have in the public domain a simple, clear, evidence-based narrative about climate change, its causes and likely impacts.

I could not agree more with the Government’s submission to the report; I only wish sometimes that the Government’s actions matched their rhetoric on this issue—I am not referring to the Minister. It is perhaps an understatement to suggest that the Government are guilty of mixed messages, with differing views on the severity, consequences and even the existence of climate change coming out of different Departments. The report repeatedly makes a point about the lack of coherence in Government climate policy and communications, and I think that point is well founded.

That is somewhat disconcerting coming from a man who was in charge of the UK’s climate change adaptations.

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14:53 Julie Elliott (in the Chair)

As I was saying, the former Secretary of State’s words were somewhat disconcerting coming from a man who was in charge of the UK’s climate change adaptation. His successor as Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the right hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss), seems to be carrying on in that vein. Just a few days ago, her Department announced that it would remove a common agricultural policy subsidy from solar developments, under the curious logic that solar farms have caused the UK to become an importer of apples.

That is further evidence of a Government who have no joined-up voice on renewable energy and climate change, and who are more interested in sensationalist headlines than sound policy. The Prime Minister promised to lead the “greenest Government ever”, but just a few years later he was reported as saying that he would cut “the green crap”. These inconsistencies in communications have far-reaching consequences. My hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston put very well the point about the media not being balanced in their reporting of climate change—pitting scientists against non-scientists—and I totally agree with his analysis of that unbalanced reporting.

We combat climate change by developing a low-carbon energy mix, including renewables, new nuclear, and carbon capture and storage. Incoherent messages from the Government and the media undermine both investment in the low-carbon sector and our response to the threat of climate change, which is real. As David Kennedy, the former chief executive of the Committee on Climate Change, put it so clearly:

The Select Committee’s report feeds in to so many of my meetings with renewable energy developers; the mixed-up messaging emanating from Government about our commitment to reducing our carbon emissions through low-carbon technologies gets raised every time I meet developers. Every Conservative-Lib Dem row, whether real or for public relations purposes, is another hammer blow to investment in low-carbon technologies. Of course those rows get reported, so even when the media are accurately reporting what is said, they are again sending out mixed messages to the public.

We cannot expect investors to put their money into low-carbon technologies if they hear expressions of different levels of commitment on climate change from different Departments. It is with great regret that I have seen the cross-party consensus that we had before the 2010 election crumble. Just five MPs voted against the Climate Change Act 2008. I want to be entirely clear: it was not Labour that broke that consensus. We understand the importance of speaking with a clear message on climate change.

It must be both frustrating and confusing for members of the public to hear, on the one hand, that averting catastrophic climate change is the great challenge of our time, which it is, and, on the other, that the Chancellor wants to water down the implementation of the fourth carbon budget, that Britain should go no faster than the rest of Europe, that wind farms are pointless and that solar PV is a blight on our communities. The reporting of these issues is often misleading and sometimes verges on the hysterical.

In the Government’s response to the Select Committee’s report, I am pleased to see an admission that Departments could operate in a more joined-up manner. I will give just one example of where there is a lack of joined-up working: planning for onshore wind. I asked the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change what discussions he had had with his colleagues at the Department for Communities and Local Government about such planning, and the answer came back: none.

The Committee on Climate Change, the Government’s independent advisory body, has warned the Government about their mixed messages on climate change. For example, the CCC supports a 2030 power sector decarbonisation target, as do Labour and large renewable energy developers such as Siemens, yet the Government have refused to set such a target. For the sake of clarity, I should add that the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change supports the target, but voted against it.

I hope that the Government look again at the recommendations of the Select Committee’s report, and in particular that they speak with one voice on climate change.

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14:58 The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (Amber Rudd)

As we said in our response, the Government must communicate what we are doing to address the risks that climate science has revealed, but communicating climate science is just one part of communicating the wider issue of climate change. Let us be clear that these are two interrelated but distinct discussions. Scientists, as independent and trusted experts, must take the lead in communicating science, and we in government must focus on communicating our responses to scientific facts.

The scientific consensus is overwhelming: the fact is that climate change is happening and people are causing it, and we need to take urgent action to avoid dangerous climate change. Global climate change is already being seen around the world. Nine of the hottest years ever measured were in the past 12 years; heat waves have become more frequent and are lasting longer; the height of extreme sea levels caused by storms has increased; and oceans are acidifying and becoming fatally unhealthy for sea life. These facts are well known by members of the Committee but these changes are neither mysterious nor unexpected.

When the Prime Minister addressed the UN General Assembly this September, for the Secretary-General’s summit on climate change, he demonstrated that we will stand by those words.

This is a timely debate, coming just before the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change finalises its fifth assessment synthesis report in Copenhagen. This report will bring together the findings of the three working groups covering the fundamental science on climate change, future risks and options for responding. I thank the Energy and Climate Change Committee for its inquiry into the IPCC’s report on the physical science basis of climate change. I welcome the Committee’s finding, which was that the IPCC procedures were robust, just as its conclusions are stark. The fifth assessment report represents the most up to date and comprehensive review of the science of climate change. It also provides an excellent vehicle for communicating climate science and will inform the international negotiations in Paris next year.

I am not moving on from the expert group yet. I will say a few words about that. The matter was brought up in some detail by the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston. We want to ensure that this group has an effective role and we are talking to those who are likely to be involved. We have set up the group and my Department has also set up the cross-Government climate change communications group and developed a cross-Government narrative, which climate science is part of.

The cross-Government communications group is composed of working-level officials invited from all Departments. It has met twice so far, in June and again on 15 August, and it will continue to meet for the foreseeable future. In the first meeting, 12 Departments attended, including the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Department of Energy and Climate Change. The Scottish Government are also included. We also had representatives from the Department for International Development, the Treasury, the Environment Agency and the Met Office. That is another example of action following Committee recommendations.

However, most people do not need, or indeed want, to understand the detailed science; they want to understand what they can do. The good news is that the public in the UK understand that climate change is a serious issue. More than two thirds of people in the UK are concerned about climate change. This is a strong mandate for all political parties to take ambitious action to tackle climate change. That underpins this Government’s actions to seek an ambitious global deal in Paris next year and our policies to reduce UK emissions entrenched in the Climate Change Act, helping towards achieving our commitment of an 80% reduction of emissions by 2050.

Although a small group—we may have a member of that group in this Chamber—is highly sceptical about action on climate change, fewer than one in 10 people in the UK think the benefits of tackling climate change are outweighed by the risks. In fact, six times as many people believe that the benefits of action outweigh the risks.

Our challenge is to explain why climate change matters when people are concerned quite rightly about jobs, the economy and the cost of their energy bills. We must continue to talk about the risks posed by climate change, including risks of floods and heat waves, which have already increased in the UK, and the need to take action to avoid the unacceptable risks of sudden and irreversible climate disruption. However, alongside these risks, we must talk about the benefits that can flow from tackling climate change.

Our priority for communicating on climate change is to make sure that the importance and urgency of action on climate change continues to be heard, despite the weight of other concerns and other news. We recently laid out the case for climate action at local, national, regional and international level, and a global deal, in our Paris 2015 publication.

We are not in the game of chasing headlines. We know the science has spoken and we want informed, sensible debate on what we do about tackling climate change. We are working hard, responsibly and successfully to ensure that messages on climate change and our policies to reduce our emissions are accessible to the public, and to explain how these will affect other priorities, such as bills, health and, indeed, keeping the lights on. To do this we are looking wider than traditional media. Indeed, ahead of the next United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change conference of parties at the end of the year, I will be part of a wider Tweetathon in late November, communicating to all peoples and civic society, to debate these important issues.

We can avoid dangerous climate change through innovation and global will. Reducing emissions is part of securing economic growth. This is already happening. As a result of the commitment seen so far, new technologies are becoming available. For example, in only six years the cost of solar photovoltaic systems fell by two thirds. Costs continue to fall and deployment continues to accelerate. This month, the world’s first carbon-capture power station started operation. The UK is among the leaders in developing CCS.

The hon. Lady shares with me a commitment to ensuring that we take action, and she raised interesting questions about public awareness. The public’s activity in support of action is incredibly important. When I was in New York with the Prime Minister and other Environment and Energy Ministers for the recent summit, there was a climate change march of more than 400,000 people—in fact, marches took place in 40 cities throughout the world. When I had the opportunity, I told the people who were marching, “Please keeping doing this. Keep raising your voices. Keep reminding politicians how much you care about this and how much you will hold us to account, so that we continue to make the right decisions for your country and the world.”

The hon. Lady made an interesting point about education. I am aware that climate change is part of a GCSE geography syllabus, but I do not know whether it goes further than that, and I would like to come back to her on that.

To finish, many of those who purport to have issues with climate science do so because they do not like the implication of the solutions. Some may be worried that the proposed measures to tackle climate change are intrusive and at odds with the free market. However, the science is clear: human emissions are driving global temperatures upwards, and continued emissions will lead to further warming and many other changes to our planet. We need to take action to avoid unacceptable risks.

Let us talk about real solutions and options and about acceptable levels of risk, rather than wish the problem away. I am optimistic we can avoid dangerous climate change. It will take political will and technological change, and that is already happening. As I said, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister once again emphasised that climate change is one of the most serious threats facing our world and underlined UK leadership. We will continue to communicate what we are doing to tackle climate change and how we are playing a part in improving the UK’s energy efficiency, as well as our far-reaching plans to decarbonise our energy supply and to push for an ambitious global deal in Paris.

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15:13 Andrew Miller

I welcome the contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Joan Walley) and the work being done by her Committee, because there are significant cross-cutting issues. My hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland Central (Julie Elliott) talked about the need for joining up, and that is certainly true of my Committee’s work and that being done by my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North. However, we also heard about it when we did a report on horizon-scanning, when even one of the top civil servants—Jon Day from the Cabinet Office—said that there is a problem with the Government’s silo mentality in dealing with some of the long-term horizon-scanning problems, and nothing is bigger in that respect than climate change.

It is critical that we should use consistent, coherent arguments and accessible language. My hon. Friend the Member for Blackley and Broughton mentioned the attribution of tsunamis to climate change, which is bonkers. We must get away from that, and from editorial comment such as the one my hon. Friend mentioned from The Times, and be pro-active about encouraging newspaper editors and journalists to improve their use of language about the subject. This is a hugely important area; if we do not carry the public with us, and should the scientific consensus prove correct, as I believe it will, we will find ourselves in deep difficulties—not just as a nation, and not just in coastal areas, but with respect to our responsibilities globally.

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