PARLIAMENTARY EARLY DAY MOTION
CLIMATE CHANGE AND ENERGY POLICY (8 June 1997)

That this House welcomes the new Government's claim to put concern for the environment at the heart of policy making, so that it is not an add-on extra but informs the whole of government from housing and energy policy through to global warming and international agreements; notes that later this month world leaders will meet at the Environmental Special Session of the United Nations General Assembly to discuss the environment for the first time since the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992, where the United Kingdom signed up to the Framework Convention on Climate Change whose objective is to constrain climate change to rates and limits allowing ecosystems to adapt naturally; further notes that in 1995 scientists from the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change deemed climate change to be discernible; calls on the Government to ensure that energy prices reflect the environmental costs of energy production using instruments such as carbon and energy taxes; and further believes that the priority should be given to developing renewables over fossil fuels by the removal of all direct and indirect subsidies to the fossil fuel and nuclear industries and the transferral of these funds to accelerate the commercialisation of sustainable energy technologies and the uptake of energy efficiency.

Sponsored by:
Lord Taylor of Goss Moor (Liberal Democrat)