Climate Change Bill [HL]

My Lords, I commend the Government for the Bill and support the proposals for statutory emissions reduction targets and carbon budgeting and trading schemes, but I agree with the recommendation of the Joint Committee on the draft Bill that the compliance mechanism for carbon budgets needs to be strengthened. We need an effective mechanism to ensure that something actually happens if it looks as if we are not hitting the targets. The Government could commit to purchasing domestic and international carbon credits if the budget were off track. However, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, that a cap is needed on the purchase of overseas credits if we are not to risk overly focusing on carbon reduction globally, rather than re-engineering the UK to a low-carbon economy. If we were off-beam on targets, the Government could help with credits from a fund set up specifically to stimulate low-carbon development to achieve that re-engineering. I wish to focus on Part 4, which is about adaptation. I should declare an interest as the chief executive of the Environment Agency. The Minister may be looking for Prince Charming, but I am afraid that all I can offer is Queen Canute. Adaptation is the poor relation of the climate change agenda. The global focus has been primarily on mitigation and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Managing the impacts of climate change is important and pressing—the summer floods and the recent storm surge on the east coast were but individual examples of just how pressing they are. It is not just about floods but about drought, heat and extreme weather generally. No matter how successful we are in reducing carbon emissions, there is enough carbon already in the atmosphere to cause these extreme weather events and other impacts with increasing frequency. That will affect the economy, the quality of people’s lives—particularly poor people’s lives—and, indeed, life and limb. I welcome the duty in Part 4 on the Secretary of State to report to Parliament every five years on the risks of the impacts of climate change and the programme of measures to adapt to those risks. I welcome the Government’s intention in the new year to bring forward an adaptation plan. However, that element of the Bill needs further strengthening; I was pleased to hear other noble Lords say that it was perhaps the weaker part of the Bill. Perhaps I may bring to the House’s notice two areas that require further strengthening. The Committee on Climate Change will take a very effective role—particularly if amendments on it are tabled in your Lordships’ House—in scrutinising independently the mitigation targets, the budget and the programme. I believe that we need a similar committee, as an advisory group, to provide independent and expert scrutiny of progress on the adaptation programme. That group needs to be separate from the Committee on Climate Change so that the adaptation element of the agenda is given a proper focus. However, it needs to be carefully timetabled to ensure that its view on the adaptation risks and impacts and on how well prepared we are for them feeds into the considerations of the Committee on Climate Change in giving advice to government on setting targets and budgets. The second strengthening was brought home by the summer floods but it is not a new issue. All the reports on floods over the past 10 years and longer have pointed out how vulnerable our vital infrastructure is in this country to the impact of, in those days, flooding and, increasingly these days, all the effects of climate change. I am talking not just about electricity switching stations and waterworks but also about roads, railways, hospitals, police stations, fire stations, healthcare premises and, distressingly, Environment Agency offices. Our regional control centre was in Tewkesbury—a rather ill advised choice, I think. These are issues that have been connected only with the floods, but many of our important electrical installations will not operate at high temperatures, so we have to think through in a rounded way the impacts and how such critical infrastructure can be made climate change-resilient for the future. I welcome very much the Prime Minister’s commitment last week to bring forward an amendment to the Bill to introduce risk-based monitoring and statutory guidance to encourage the providers of these infrastructures to think about climate change in what they do. If I understand it correctly, the plan is that there will be statutory guidance and that the Government will assess whether all the bodies that need to take action, of which there are many—there could be several thousand—have done enough and will then wait to see what further action needs to be taken. I think that we have waited to see for quite a long time. We have waited to see since 1998 and, lo and behold, we saw in the summer that critical infrastructure flooded, so we need an amendment that is tougher than may currently be planned. The Environment Agency has assessed the number of all sorts of pieces of vital infrastructure that are at high risk of flooding and I do not think that it would be a surprise to say that, at the moment, our key public services are simply inadequately protected. We need action now. I believe that an amendment should be brought forward now placing a duty on public bodies, public authorities and the providers of critical infrastructure to assess the risks of climate change to their functions and to put in place an action plan to reduce those risks. There are already parallels in existing legislation with the Civil Contingencies Act. Can the Minister say in his response whether he will be able to bring forward the text of the government amendment well enough in advance of the Committee stage in this House to allow proper consideration of whether the action will indeed be urgent enough, tough enough and fit for purpose? Ideally, he will also bring forward the draft strategic guidance on adaptation so that we can take a view on whether the proposed provisions will deliver fast improvement in the climate change-proofing of our infrastructure. The noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, talked about urgency. Time is of the essence in reducing carbon emissions but it is even more of the essence in the adaptation agenda because the impacts that we are seeing now will be seen increasingly frequently. My noble friend Lord Puttnam also said that, if we get these issues wrong, they will fall upon our children and our children’s children. I very rarely take issue with my noble friend but I will on this occasion. I do not think that this is an issue for our children and our children’s children; the adaptation agenda is an issue for us all now—for noble Lords, for me and for the people in the Gallery. Let us see this good Bill strengthened as it goes through our House so that it becomes an excellent Bill.