Climate Change

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Tuesday 1st March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The noble Baroness is entirely right in her assessment. The Dasgupta review and other work has indicated the impact that global warming will have on our ecosystems and economy. The CCC has identified eight priority areas for urgent attention and considered 61 UK-wide climate risks and opportunities cutting across multiple sectors. We are looking at every risk and tackling those eight priorities, four of which come directly under Defra and all of which are cross-government.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, does my noble friend not recognise that, since the climate change conference, one of the risks that we need to be concerned about is security of supply for the energy that we need to keep people warm and keep our economy operating? Does he not think that this might be the moment when we should refresh our ideas on whether we allow fracking and the exploration of gas in our own resources so that we can maintain that security of supply?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The greatest stability in an unstable world is for us to decarbonise our economy as much as we can and become less reliant on other countries, or indeed on hydrocarbons, for our future. The Government’s strategy thus far has been absolutely right, and we will continue to make sure that our economy is resilient to the kind of global instability that we are experiencing at the moment.