Extreme weather events related to climate change

Backbench Business Committee submission

The application for this debate was made by Darren Jones MP with the following proposal:

I am applying for a 90-minute Westminster Hall debate to talk about the weather. That might sound frightfully British, but it is because we had a number of extreme weather patterns across the world over the summer recess this year, when we were of course not here to debate them. The really important Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report that came out on 8 October suggested that we have 12 years to limit world temperature increases to 1.5°C if we do not want to see substantive changes to the way we live our lives.

We have applied through the shuffle on a couple of occasions and been unsuccessful, which is why I have brought this application to the Committee. We checked with the House of Commons Library whether I missed the opportunity to take part in one of these important debates. There has not been one on the Floor of the House or in Westminster Hall. There were several debates recently on the clean growth strategy, which were welcome and which I took part in, but those focused specifically on domestic policy and the industrial strategy, as opposed to international collaboration—this is an international issue—and also the Government’s view on the IPCC report and limiting temperature growth to 1.5°C.

As you can see from the application, we have had positive support from Members from across the House, with enough to fill a 90-minute debate. I suggest that it is really important for Parliament to debate the substance of the IPCC report in parliamentary time, which we have not had the chance to do yet, to understand the Government’s view and then, off the back of the debate, to suggest whether it might require further debate in the House or further action through normal parliamentary procedures.[1]

Some further information on the specific topics raised in the backbench business committee application is included in this pack in a Library briefing on Extreme weather events related to climate change. The pack also contains relevant news items, press releases, Parliamentary material and useful links for further reading. 

[1]     Backbench Business Committee, Representations: Backbench Debates, 30 October 2018, Q7