Climate Bill wins first Commons vote

The UK's climate change bill moved a step closer to adoption last night after the legislation cleared its first Commons vote.

But the government drew fire from green groups, Liberal Democrats and Labour backbenchers for removing a number of amendments added to the bill in the Lords and designed to toughen up the legislation.

The climate change bill, which will set a legally binding target for the UK to cut emissions by 60 per cent by 2050, was granted a second reading by 344 votes to three.

Under the legislation, successive governments would be required to meet five-year "carbon budgets" and report annually to parliament on their progress towards the 60 per cent target. It will also authorise a range of environmental measures, including the formation of an independent climate change committee to be tasked with setting the five-year targets and the introduction of controversial pay-as-you-throw recycling schemes.

However, the government was criticised for ignoring a Parliamentary Petition signed by 257 MPs, including more than two thirds of Labour backbenchers, demanding that the bill be strengthened to require an 80 per cent cut in emissions by 2050 and take account of emissions from international shipping and aviation.

"Ministers are ignoring advice from scientists and more than two thirds of back bench Labour MPs who are calling for the Climate Change Bill to be strengthened," Friends of the Earth's parliamentary campaigner Martyn Williams said. "They must show they are listening and taking this huge threat to UK security seriously."

The government has said that the new independent climate change committee is already assessing whether these changes to the target should be made and is expected to make its recommendations later this year.

The government also dropped amendments added to the bill in the Lords that would have required all publicly listed companies to report on their carbon emissions and placed a limit on the extent to which the UK can meet its emission targets by funding overseas carbon reduction projects.

Sarah Spinney, Christian Aid's climate change campaigns manager, said the government had "eviscerated" the legislation, adding that "its entire commitment to tackling climate change is now open to question."

Meanwhile, cracks emerged in the Conservative's support for the bill with several senior Tories expressing their opposition to the legislation.

Shadow environment secretary Peter Ainsworth welcomed the bill as a "small but potentially important part of a global effort to reduce the impact [of climate change]".

However, according to Press Association reports, former Tory shadow cabinet minister John Maples MP said he did not believe the science was "anywhere near as settled" as the bill suggested, adding that the UK should instead focus on adapting to temperature increases.

"We know how to deal with that," he said. "If we are richer we can have air conditioning, we know if we put in more parks and more water and more trees in cities we would cool them considerably. We know how to do that, we can adapt to that very successfully."

Environment secretary Phil Woolas responded that the comments represented an "astonishing attack by senior Conservative climate change deniers" that provided "further proof of the Conservative party's shaky consensus on climate change".