Only 70 MPs and peers attended an emergency climate briefing by the UK government’s chief scientific adviser in parliament on Monday, the Guardian has learned.
The briefing, organised by the climate change all-party parliamentary group, was an updated version of the slides that the chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, showed Boris Johnson before the UN climate summit Cop26 in Glasgow in November.
The slides, presented on Monday afternoon, show the latest climate science, including the rise in CO2 concentration and global mean temperatures in recent decades. Johnson credited them with giving him a “road to Damascus” moment on climate breakdown.
He said at the time: “I got them [government scientists] to run through it all and, if you look at the almost vertical kink upward in the temperature graph, the anthropogenic climate change, it’s very hard to dispute. That was a very important moment for me.”
The briefing was made possible after the activist Angus Rose staged a 37-day hunger strike outside parliament, calling for the information to be given to all MPs.
He was backed by 79 of the UK’s leading climate scientists in an open letter, who said a briefing similar to those given during the Covid-19 pandemic would be useful to MPs.
The briefing, which also outlined the health, environmental and other impacts of the climate emergency relevant to the UK in particular, has been updated to take account of recent IPCC reports, which warned: “We are at a crossroads. The decisions we make now can secure a liveable future. We have the tools and knowhow required to limit warming.”
Scientists and politicians hope that the MPs and peers assembled will be spurred on to demand more urgent action to tackle the climate crisis.
Caroline Lucas, the Green party MP who runs the APPG, said it was important for her colleagues to learn about climate breakdown. Speaking before the briefing, she said: “It’s three years since parliament declared a climate emergency, yet ministers are still not heeding the scientists’ dire warnings about the climate emergency and MPs are still not all fully informed about the latest climate science.
“It’s therefore hugely welcome that the government’s chief scientific adviser and a panel of climate scientists are going to brief MPs and peers, and answer their questions, in large part thanks to the actions of Angus Rose.”
Vallance’s team have been contacted for comment.
