All Party Parliamentary Climate Change Group Is a Cross-Party ...

Foreword
In life generally to be convinced that something is the right thing to do doesn’t necessarily make it
any easier to accomplish, but hopefully it helps. In the special and somewhat exceptional world of
politics, ‘doing the right thing’ can be harder to pin down especially in a society that has famously
dined out on tribalist, adversarial and confrontational processes of decision making. We look to the
single tradition of the ‘Mother of Parliaments’ to determine our behaviour, no matter how in need of
reform the system is, no matter how dysfunctional it is in the 21 st century.
In the face of climate change our body politic has run out of steam. To coin an inelegant phrase but
one which is no less apt for that, our way of doing politics is no longer fit for purpose. The All Party
Parliamentary Climate Change Group (APPCCG) initiated this inquiry into the potential of a cross
party consensus on climate change to try to look beyond the tendency of politics to dwell in the
terrain of competition for short term advantage – and to see whether there could be space in which a
fundamental sense of common purpose can prevail. I believe the report of our independent assessors
shows that such space could exist, and moreover should exist – if not at our peril.
The APPCCG will return to this theme and try to respond to what seems to us a binding imperative,
which many leading politicians have articulated. Climate change is the greatest threat humankind
faces.
This APPCCG inquiry, our first, could not have happened without the dedication of the three
assessors who have written the report: Dr Helen Clayton, Prof. Nick Pidgeon and Prof. Mark
Whitby. Perhaps when I first asked them to help in this inquiry little did they (or I) anticipate quite
how much commitment would be required to undertake the task. I feel guilty that I may have
misrepresented the input required, so my thanks to them could never be overstated. They have
produced a report of quality and integrity.
My thanks go also to The Independent, a newspaper which has championed the fight against climate
change and which devoted much space to the launch of the inquiry; to the Joseph Rowntree Reform
Trust which made the inquiry possible with financial backing; to the RSA for its commitment to the
debate on climate change, which is manifest not only in helping us launch this report, but in its
determination to research new policies which could address climate change; and to Tina Davy who
edited the oral evidence; and finally my thanks go to the APPCCG’s secretariat, the Carbon Neutral
Company, who have been an essential component in the success of the first year’s activity of the
group.
This report is presented in the hope that a bridge may be built – a sound and lasting structure over
which policy vehicles may traverse. We need a new political structure which has the strength to
withstand the strains of the democratic process but which will also address the wholly overriding
imperative to tackle climate change.
Colin Challen MP
Chair
APPCCG
3