A Private Members’ Bill is currently wending its way through Parliament. Called the Climate and Nature Bill (CAN), it threatens to wreck the UK economy, damage lives and undermine democracy.
And that’s just for starters! It makes Theresa May’s Net Zero legislation look like a walk in the park.
Private Members’ Bills rarely turn into law, but worryingly this one already has the public support of 192 MPs – you can check the list here. And as we know, Theresa May’s Net Zero legislation passed with barely a murmur, despite having no democratic mandate.
Originally the brainchild of the then Green Party MP Caroline Lucas, the Bill is due for its Second Reading on January 24. It is based on the premise that the current legislation mandating Net Zero by 2050 is inadequate. It calls for UK emissions to be rapidly cut ‘in line with the 1.5C target’. In effect, this means cutting emissions by about 90 per cent in the next ten years.
If passed, it would oblige the Energy Secretary to create a new climate change strategy and present it to Parliament within a year. The Government would be required by law to ‘limit the UK’s total CO2 emissions to no more than its proportionate share of the IPCC’s remaining global carbon budget, for a 67 per cent chance of limiting heating to 1.5 deg C’.
Worse still, it lays down that imported emissions are accounted for as well, not just territorial ones, ie those that occur within our geographical borders, as at present. When all emissions are counted, including shipping and aviation, UK emissions have fallen by only about 23 per cent since 1990, the Bill’s proponents say. This is much less than the 48 per cent claimed for territorial under the current system.
Given that territorial emissions are little more than half total emissions, such a target physically could not be achieved without radical changes to the UK economy, energy system and people’s lives. We would have to do without most of what we currently import, for example.
To meet the Bill’s demands, total emissions, including imports, would need to be cut by two thirds by 2030, and virtually eliminated in ten years’ time.
It does not seem to have occurred to the Bill’s supporters that if we eliminated UK emissions tomorrow it would not have the slightest effect, given that the rest of the world is still increasing emissions year-on-year. Since the Paris Agreement in 2015, for instance, world emissions of CO2 have increased by 7 per cent, while ours have fallen.
The Bill would make it law that both the production and import of fossil fuels must end ‘as rapidly as possible’. Imports of food would have to be virtually eliminated as well since food emissions account for a third of our total, and we import half our food.
Given that the UK would also have to shut down most of its meat farming, it is not clear exactly where we would get our food from. Apparently, the Bill’s proponents believe we can live on ‘low carbon fruit, veg, nuts, pulses and grains’ instead!
One of the most insidious parts of the Bill lays down a legally enforceable role for a ‘Climate and Nature Assembly’, a body similar to the Climate Assembly set up in 2019. This body is supposed to reflect the views of the public. In reality, the 2019 version took a handful of ordinary citizens, brainwashed them with the help of ‘experts’ and then presented their conclusions as ‘public opinion’.
We already have a system which gives the public the chance to offer their views – it is called elections. But this new Bill would go further. The Assemblies would not just be advisory. The Bill states: ‘The Secretary of State must include in the strategy all recommendations of the Assembly that have the support of 66 per cent of its members, where those recommendations are also jointly proposed by . . . the Climate Change Committee.’
Such a proposal would severely undermine democracy by taking away the rights of voters to make these choices and tie the hands of future Parliaments.
As the Bill also states: ‘If the Government fails to deliver a strategy that meets the Bill’s objectives and fundamental principles, the Government can be challenged in the High Court through judicial review’. Therein lies the real threat. If this Bill becomes law, it will be activist judges who will be making decisions, not elected politicians.
If all of this was not bad enough, the Bill not only wants to lay down laws about climate change, it also proposes exactly the same for ‘Nature’. In its own words, it prioritises ‘nature’ in decision-making and calls to restore and expand natural eco-systems. Any development or activity that threatens nature must prioritise the protection of nature.
And we must also address the UK’s entire ecological footprint at home and overseasby accounting for the ‘destruction of nature’.
The Bill’s supporters say that the UK’s ‘environmental footprint’ must be reduced by three-quarters by 2030.
Reducing something tangible like emissions is one thing. But how on Earth do you measure an environmental footprint (whatever that is)? It opens the door for any crackpot green outfit to sue the Government, and any left-wing judge to make whatever crazy decisions he wants.
Nobody voted for this lunacy, yet 192 MPs plan to vote for the Bill, and no doubt many more will join them. Even if this Bill fails, the policies it contains will surely find their way into public policy sooner or later.
Net Zero is already doing great harm, but if this Bill becomes law, the country will be unrecognisable in ten years’ time. There will be energy and food shortages, industry will be decimated, private transport and foreign holidays a thing of the past. What we take for granted today will be unaffordable for most.
And there will be nothing we can do about it.
Zero Hour, the campaign group for the Climate and Nature Bill, have more detail of what is in store for us here.
