UK Lead Science Advisor Presents Emergency Climate Briefing: Less Than 10% Of MPs Bother To Show Up
Only 60 MPs are expected to attend 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, will be 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. But the APPG told the Guardian fewer than 10% of MPs had signed up to watch.
The slides, due to be presented at 3.30pm on Monday, show the latest climate science, including the rise in carbon dioxide concentration and global mean temperatures in recent decades. Johnson credited them with giving him a “road to Damascus” moment on climate change. 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.”
EDIT
he 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 will include the health, environmental and other impacts of the climate emergency relevant to UK citizens, will be updated to take account of recent IPCC reports, which warned: “We are at a crossroads. The decisions we make now can secure a livable future. We have the tools and knowhow required to limit warming.”
EDIT
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jul/11/fewer-than-10-percent-of-uk-mps-sign-up-for-emergency-climate-briefing