Only 60 MPs are expected to attend an emergency briefing on the climate of the UK government’s chief scientific adviser in parliament on Monday, The Guardian has learned.
The briefing, organized by the parliamentary group of all parties on climate change, will be an updated version of the slides that the chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, showed to Boris Johnson before the UN summit on climate change. climate Cop26 in Glasgow in november. But the APPG told the Guardian that less than 10% of MPs had signed up to watch.
The slides, which will be presented Monday at 3:30 p.m., show the latest climate science, including rising carbon dioxide concentration and global average temperatures in recent decades. Johnson credited them with giving him a “road to Damascus” moment on climate change.
Then he said, “I have them [government scientists] to go through it all, and if you look at the almost vertical torsion up the temperature graph, anthropogenic climate change, it’s very hard to argue. It was a very important moment for me. “
The briefing was made possible after activist Angus Rose staged a 37-day hunger strike outside parliament, calling for information to be given to all MPs.
It was backed by 79 of the UK’s leading climate scientists in an open letter, who said a briefing session similar to the one given during the Covid-19 pandemic would be useful for MPs.
The briefing, which will include health, environmental and other impacts of the climate emergency relevant to UK citizens, will be updated to take into account recent IPCC reports, which warned: “We are at a crossroads. The decisions we make now can guarantee a livable future. We have the tools and knowledge to limit warming. “
Scientists and politicians hope that the deputies gathered will be encouraged to demand more urgent action to deal with the climate crisis.
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Caroline Lucas, the Green Party MP who leads the APPG, urged her colleagues to attend. He said: “It has been three years since parliament declared a climate emergency, but ministers are still not listening to scientists’ terrible warnings about the climate emergency and MPs are not yet fully informed about the latest climate science.
“It is therefore very welcome that the chief scientific adviser to the government and a group of climate scientists inform parliamentarians and colleagues and answer their questions, largely thanks to the actions of Angus Rose.
“[I] it would urge parliamentarians from all parties to attend and equip themselves with the knowledge and understanding they need to protect us now and in the future. “
Vallance’s team has been contacted for comment.