Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if she will commission and publish a comprehensive study of the potential cost to the UK economy of a changing climate; and if she will make a statement.

The Government currently has no plans to undertake a comprehensive study into the potential cost of climate change to the UK economy. The Stern Review: the Economics of Climate Change, an independent review commissioned by the then UK government and published in 2006, established the relationship between increasing global greenhouse gases emissions and higher costs due to the impacts of climate change. There are large uncertainties associated with this type of assessment, but the overall conclusion is that the benefits of strong, early action to avoid climate change considerably outweigh the costs.

The Government’s focus is therefore on the implementation of cost-effective actions to reduce the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions and to ensure that the UK and its economy are resilient to unavoidable changes in the climate.

As required under the UK Climate Change Act 2008, we will publish our second Climate Change Risk Assessment next year.