Members of the House of Lords have raised issues with the UK government about climate scenarios used by the Bank of England and the country’s financial services firms and pension schemes. There has been growing concern that globally recognised scenarios do not adequately reflect climate science. In a debate on 25 January, Baroness Drake said she was concerned that the Bank of England’s scenarios had “concluded that it does not matter much whether temperatures rise by 1.5, 2 or 4°C”. In a similar vein, Baroness Altmann said that the climate models currently in use have been shown to be deeply flawed by the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries, the Pensions Regulator, and even the coalition of central banks that developed them. They and other peers urged the UK government to act. Responding on behalf of the government, Baroness Vere of Norbiton argued that it was up to independent regulators to decide the next stage of climate scenarios, adding that they were “very seized of the issue”.
