MPs to grill Turner and Miliband over carbon targets

The government and the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) can today expect to face a grilling at the hands of MPs over the scientific credibility of the emission reductions recommended in its proposed carbon budgets.

CCC chairman Lord Turner, chief executive David Kennedy, and energy and climate change secretary Ed Miliband are all scheduled to give evidence to the Environmental Audit Committee's inquiry into the carbon budgets recommended by the CCC which require the UK to cut carbon emissions 34 per cent on 1990 levels by 2020.

The inquiry, which was launched back in March, is intended to assess how well the budgets recommended by the CCC "correspond to the emissions reductions required by countries such as the UK to limit global warming to two degrees Centigrade, the Government's target for avoiding dangerous climate change".

In particular, it will assess the suitability of the climate models, and the cross party committee of MPs are expected to question the CCC's representatives on whether they have taken account of the latest climate science, much of which suggests that high profile commitments from the government and the international community to cut global emissions by 50 per cent and developed world emissions by 80 per cent by 2050 would give us a negligible chance of avoiding dangerous climate change.

According to climate change campaigner and founder of the Global Commons Institute (GCI) group, Aubrey Meyer, the CCC's recommendation that UK emissions are reduced by 80 per cent by 2050 appear to be based on Met Office models that fail to take full account of the impact of so-called "carbon feedbacks" whereby rising average temperatures lead to increased emissions from natural carbon sinks.

Meyer, who has submitted written evidence to the EAC inquiry and has been engaged in a long-running dialogue with the Met Office over the validity of its models, also argues that the projections used by the CCC include "shockingly optimistic" assumptions that the ability of carbon sinks to soak up atmospheric carbon dioxide will have recovered dramatically by 2050.

He calculates that realistically global carbon emissions will need to fall by 80 per cent by 2050, meaning developed nations such as the UK will have to cut emissions by more than 90 per cent, if there is to be a reasonable chance of limiting temperature rises to just two degrees.

It is a view shared by growing numbers of climate scientists, many of whom warned at a meeting last month that based on current projections global average temperatures are likely to rise by four degrees by 2060.

The EAC is expected to call on the CCC to clarify precisely which models it used as the basis for its carbon budgets and ask how and when the budgets can be updated to take account of evolving scientific evidence.