Contraction and Convergence News

Evidence showing Ministerial incomprehension of C&C, the Climate Act and what was relevant at COP-15 Copenhagen

Ed Milliband was the Minister at the UK Department of Environment and Climate Change [DECC]. He oversaw the introduction into law of the UK Climate-Act in 2008.

The Act prescribed a global convergence-rate to equal per capita shares globally that completed by 2050. This was inside a global emissions contraction rate that peaked in 2016 and declined to zero emissions by the end of the Century.

Miliband gave evidence to the Environmental Audit Select Committee [EAC] in October 2009, more than a year after the Climate Act had been in force and on the eve of taking the rates of C&C in the UK Climate-Act to COP-15 in Copenhagen in December 2009. This prescription became known as the 'Danish Draft' and it was put forward by a group of Governments led by the UK, who claimed it would avoid exceeding an overal temperature rise of two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial.

Tim Yeo, the then EAC Chairman asked him, "Will C&C feature in the negotiations at COP-15?"

"I think probably not is the answer," replied Mr Miliband. He went on, "I do not think that will form the basis of an agreement. I think that there is a sort of attractive justice element to the contraction and convergence idea. The complexity of it, though, is what is the point at which convergence takes place and what do we say about different countries' levels of growth at that point, GDP, how should we adjust for different weather conditions and all that?

Trying not to be impolite, I told him when his evidence session closed, that he appeared 'a little inexperienced'. He strode out of the chamber in a great huff.

I said this because he appeared to be completely unaware that a convergence date of 2050 had already been turned into UK Law with UK Climate Act, an act largely scripted by DECC and the Climate Change Committee.

He was also apparently unaware that the Chinese Government had proposed immediate convergence of emissions entitlements in July 2009.

However, Mr Miliband then went further than that. He came home from the fiasco at COP-15 that he and DECC largely caused with their prescription, and using the Guardian newspaper, publicly accused the Chinese Government of having wrecked the COP-15 negotiations, because they had rejected DECC's convergence rate.

The obvious scientific and political falsity of the UK Government's claims to satisfy the demands of equity and urgency with this prescription more than explain why the whole thing was rejected outright by Developing Country Governments.