Climate Change Bill [HL]

My Lords, I, too, welcome and support the Bill, which is timely, important and well conceived, if not yet quite perfect. The context is absolutely clear. It is impossible to read the measured, objective prose of the recent IPCC report without accepting the basic arguments underlying it: that the planet is warming, that man is responsible, that damaging climate change is already happening and requiring us all to adapt—rich countries and particularly poor countries, which will need our help if they are to avoid damaging consequences—that further warming and damage are inevitable, but that, by acting now to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, we can contain the rise in temperature and therefore at least some of the damage that will otherwise be inevitable. As the Stern report concluded, acting now will be cheaper than acting later, and action now is urgent. The question is how we seek to achieve that. It needs addressing and answering, as the Minister said in introducing the debate, at every level—internationally, regionally, nationally, locally and by all of us as individuals, as the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, cogently argued. I shall say a word about the international dimension before turning to the Bill. I welcome the Government’s determination to play a constructive and active role in the UNFCCC conference that opens next month in Bali—for presentational reasons, I rather wish that somewhere like Detroit had been chosen to hold it. That meeting must commit the international community to reach an agreement by the time of the UNFCCC meeting in Copenhagen in 2009, so as to have a new framework in place by the time that the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012. That will not be easy, because there remain big differences among the member states involved. However, those differences are narrowing. Even the United States—even inside the beltway, as a noble Lord put it—is moving. We can be sure that whoever is elected president this time next year will be committed to a new international framework for climate change. President Sarkozy made a far-reaching and imaginative speech earlier this month. Australia will now sign the Kyoto Protocol, which suggests that electorates can be an effective compliance mechanism. The EU agreed an ambitious programme earlier this year, and there are signs of a more positive approach, too, from the emerging economies, including and perhaps especially China, for which the combined experience of pollution, climate change, the melting glaciers and desertification are becoming a real spur for action. Despite the difficulties, there is therefore a real prospect of a comprehensive international agreement within two years. That must be our aim, and I hope—indeed, am confident—that the Government will continue to lead as they have in the past. Leadership and action at national level are needed, too, which is why I welcome the Bill. However, the real leadership in the years ahead will come from the actions that stem from the Bill and not from its mere passage. That will require tough political decisions from Governments of all persuasions—on nuclear power, which a number of noble Lords have mentioned and on which I share the view of the noble Lord, Lord Waldegrave; on a more forthright approach to aviation emissions, which are growing and are crucial in this context; and on stronger fiscal incentives for clean cars in particular and energy efficiency more generally. None of that will be easy. Against that background, I support the broad structure of the Bill—its medium- and long-term targets, the establishment of an independent climate change committee to advise the Government and, I hope, to hold Governments to account through Parliament, and its enabling measures to ensure that the detailed policy prescriptions are put in place. I welcome, too, the extent to which the Government have taken into account the recommendations of the parliamentary committees which have considered the Bill so far, including the Joint Committee led by the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, of which I had the honour to be a member. The consequent revisions of the Bill have unquestionably strengthened it. The amendments to the Bill do not yet go far enough, however. Like a number of noble Lords who have spoken, I should like to see it strengthened in a number of respects. First, as the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, said, the Joint Committee supported the formulation in the Bill of a target of at least 60 per cent reduction in CO2 emissions by 2050 over 1990. I, too, supported it at the time, but the science has shifted even since the summer. It is clear that that figure, challenging though it will be to match, is now too low and almost certainly inconsistent with the Government’s aim of limiting the rise of global temperatures by 2 degrees. I am glad that the Government are to ask the new Committee on Climate Change to look at it again, but I wonder if we can or should wait that long. Will the Minister consider whether changing the figure in the Bill from 60 per cent to 80 per cent would be seen not as procrastination during the drafting process but as a recognition of the changing science and the growing urgency of the problem? Secondly, I see no logic at all in maintaining an upper limit of 32 per cent for the 2020 reduction target. What is needed is a minimum figure, and I have no difficulty with 26 per cent in that regard—but there should not be a maximum limit, as it might even in some circumstances curb our necessary ambition. I hope that the upper figure will disappear during the passage of the Bill. Thirdly, I do not think that the Government are sufficiently ambitious on aviation and shipping. I appreciate the difficulties and like other noble Lords I have received many representations about them, but this is an area in which leadership is needed. I am not confident that the international organisations involved—the ICAO for aviation and the IMO for shipping—will come up with the kind of recommendations and agreed approaches that we need. I hope that the Government will continue to argue for the early inclusion of aviation in the EU’s Emissions Trading Scheme, but like other noble Lords I see a strong case for including aviation and shipping emissions in the targets from the beginning. Most importantly, the Bill is deficient in not including an upper limit on international credits that can count towards meeting the targets in the Bill. There, too, I share the views expressed by other noble Lords this afternoon. International credits are not as sure as national emission reductions, whatever the logic behind it, and there is a risk that by relying too heavily on international credits the total emission reductions will not be as robust as they need to be if we are really to meet the objectives of reducing global emissions by 2050. I hope that during the passage of the Bill an upper limit on permitted international credits will be included. Finally, as many noble Lords have said, the Committee on Climate Change is a key element in the Bill. I welcome the strengthened role for that committee in the revised Bill but believe that it will need to be strengthened further—or beefed up, as the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, said. It will need to be and be seen to be independent and properly resourced. At first sight, I am attracted by his suggestion that it might be converted into a stronger commission with commissioners, rather than a committee, and I look forward to him developing those ideas as the Bill passes through Committee and to the Minister’s reaction to that. With those caveats, I repeat what I said at the beginning—that I strongly support and welcome this Bill.