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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Caroline Lucas on 2015-12-01.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what projection she has made of a global temperature increases by (a) 2050 and (b) 2100 caused by greenhouse gas emissions trajectories (i) under current trends and (ii) if all Intended Nationally Determined Contributions are delivered; what the implications of such temperature rises are in the UK for (A) coastal towns and cities, (B) extreme weather events and (C) food security; and if she will make a statement.

Rory Stewart

The Department of Energy and Climate Change and Defra have supported the AVOID Research Programme to project long-term climate change scenarios to understand how emissions reductions translate to global average surface temperature change. Based on a snapshot of the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) pledged by 1 October 2015, with an assumed continuation of comparable global emissions reduction to the end of the century, this analysis projects:

(a) (i) by 2050, with continued rise in global greenhouse gas emissions, warming of between 2.3˚C and 2.6 ˚C;

(ii) by 2050, if all INDCs are delivered and continued, warming of 2˚C;

(b) (i) by 2100, with continued rise in global greenhouse gas emissions, warming of between 4.2˚C and 5.2 ˚C;

(ii) by 2100, if all Intended Nationally Determined Contributions are delivered and continued, warming of 3˚C.

All of these estimates are temperature changes relative to pre-industrial global average surface temperature and best estimates of the climate’s sensitivity to increasing greenhouse gas concentrations.

Under the Climate Change Act 2008, the Government has a statutory role to produce, on a five-yearly cycle, an assessment of the risks and opportunities for the UK arising from climate change. The first Climate Change Risk Assessment (CCRA) was published in 2012. It included consideration of impacts on our coastlines, on the frequency and severity of extreme weather, and on our food production. The CCRA used the 2009 UK Climate Change Projections to assess risks under different emissions scenarios up to the 2100s.

The National Adaptation Programme report which Defra published in July 2013 sets out how we are preparing for the impacts of climate change. This sets out more than 370 actions across key sectors involving government, business, councils, civil society and academia.

Work is underway on the second CCRA, which will include an up-to-date review of evidence on the effects of climate change. The CCRA Government Report and the associated evidence report will be published in January 2017. These will inform the next National Adaptation Programme due around 2018.

The Global Food Security programme recently launched a joint research council five-year £15 million research call on resilience of the food supply chain, in partnership with Defra and the Food Standards Agency.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Caroline Lucas on 2015-12-01.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what her policy is on the level of atmospheric carbon concentration required to prevent harmful ocean acidification; what assessment she has made of the effect of ocean acidification under atmospheric carbon concentration scenarios used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on (a) marine species and (b) coastal populations; and if she will make a statement.

George Eustice

Defra and DECC have together supported the UK Ocean Acidification Programme to better understand the impacts of climate change on our seas.

Although we are still awaiting the final summary report, outputs from the programme point to a complex range of effects on marine species and ecosystems resulting from the interplay between acidification and temperature increase. The economic effects on coastal populations are uncertain at this point though preliminary work indicates they are likely to be increasingly negative as the century progresses.

However, by reducing emissions in line with the stringent emissions scenario produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Representative Concentration Pathway 2.6) which is consistent with keeping mean global temperature increase below 2°C, we would significantly increase the options for protection, adaptation and repair of the ocean.

This is why the UK Government is seeking ambitious global action on climate change this month in Paris to protect our oceans in the future.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Caroline Lucas on 2015-12-01.

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what the size of the (a) solar, (b) wind, (c) offshore wind and (d) renewable heat sector is; and by what proportion she plans for these sectors to grow in the next (i) five, (ii) 10 and (iii) 20 years; and if she will make a statement.

Andrea Leadsom

The latest available data on the size of the low carbon sectors is published in a BIS report on ‘The size and performance of the UK low carbon economy’. The report contains estimates on turnover, Gross Value Added (GVA), number of firms and number of jobs supported by various low carbon sectors. These estimates are presented in Table 1 below.

Table 1: Size of the solar, wind and renewable heat sectors in 2013

Sector	Number of firms	Number of jobs	Turnover (£m)	Gross Value Added (£m)
Solar	2,400	34,400	8,400	3300
Wind	500	32,700	9,800	2,700
Onshore	300	19,000	6,300	1,700
Offshore	200	13,700	3,500	1,000
Renewable heat	2,300	86,000	37,600	17,500
Total	5,200	153,100	55,800	23,500

Note: Renewable heat includes the following sectors: Energy generation from waste and biomass, biomass equipment, geothermal, heat pumps, solar thermal, heat networks and alternative fuels. Some categories also include activity not relating to renewable heat. Jobs, turnover and GVA include supply chain activity.

Source: BIS (March 2015) “The Size and Performance of the UK Low Carbon Economy

Future growth in these sectors will depend upon a number of factors, such as technological development and cost reduction.

The Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) budget to cover both domestic and non-domestic schemes has been confirmed to March 2021, with funding rising each year to £1.15bn in 2020/21. We believe that this is sufficient to heat the equivalent of 500,000 homes. We are planning to reform the RHI with a particular view to improve value for money, reduce cost and improve cost control.