UK tribunal tells climate committee to show its data
The UK Information Tribunal in an August ruling has requested the independent agency Committee for Climate Change (CCC) to show how it calculated the cost of the country's net zero carbon emissions plan. It said this was a matter of extreme public importance and has given the CCC 35 days to do so.
The ruling on the case, brought by the deputy director of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, Andrew Montford, who had asked for the information, came a week before the publication of the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's damning report on progress to date on reducing global climate emissions.
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The tribunal said in its ruling that: "The issues raised by Mr Montford are matters of important public debate. We accept that there is a very strong public interest in the disclosure of information which can inform that debate, and which can cast light on the decision making processes of the government, in particular in areas which have an impact on the environment and are therefore governed by the presumption of disclosure."
The CCC's figures were presented to parliament ahead of the government's net zero emissions target in June 2019 to enshrine it in law. The ruling, which dismisses almost all of the CCC's arguments, comes after a two-year battle to obtain the cost calculations, said the GWPF August 9.
The CCC's case centred on a claim that it had erased and overwritten the relevant information by the time of the freedom of information request, just six weeks after the publication of the net zero carbon report, and indeed changed and lost it further subsequent to the request.
Montford said: "By arguing that it has overwritten and erased the spreadsheet data, the CCC has essentially admitted that its internal processes are a shambles. This is not a competent organisation and parliament needs to investigate as a matter of urgency. If they can't even manage simple matters of data retention, what hope is there that they can prepare a plausible costing of a multi-trillion pound project such as the decarbonisation of the UK economy?"
During the case, the CCC revealed that their costing does not include any estimate for spending in 2020-2049, but only considered the residual amounts in 2050, after the bulk of the transition. This was not made clear to the MPs when they agreed to bring the net zero target into law, and it is likely therefore that MPs were misled, said the GWPF.