Climate Change Bill [HL]

My Lords, I think that the noble Earl is the first to have brought into our debate a mention of the less palatable measures that may have to be taken to get to these targets. Although I agree with him and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, who spoke before him, that people—and householders—can make significant contributions which could perhaps be reinforced by the personal carbon budgets mentioned by my noble friend Lady Miller, I think that there will also have to be a considerable driving force by the public authorities behind the attainment of these targets and, where necessary, compulsion and fiscal disincentives to change harmful behaviour, for which of course this Bill is not the recipe. There is a risk that when we finish this debate at 10 o’clock, we will all go home with a warm glow of self-approval, when the uncomfortable decisions have yet to be made. There is a consensus on the science of climate change, expressed at the fourth assessment meeting of the IPCC. Everyone—certainly everyone in this House—accepts that average global temperature is increasing at an accelerating rate due to anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases, and that in the worst scenarios, the rise could be as high as 3.5 degrees by the end of the century. It is also agreed that Governments, intergovernmental organisations, NGOs, local authorities and individuals must act to prevent this increase exceeding 2 degrees if the effects are not to be utterly catastrophic. To pick up a point made by the noble Duke a few moments ago, warmer temperatures on the ocean floor could trigger the release of massive quantities of methane from the hydrates stored at the bottom of the oceans, as probably happened in the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum of 55 million years ago when global temperatures increased by 5 degrees to 8 degrees for a few thousand years. That was thought to have been triggered by a sudden release of methane from the ocean floors. If a similar event occurred now because of anthropogenic rises in deep-ocean temperatures, then very few people or animals would survive. The Hadley Centre has been working on models of ocean temperatures, but the science has not yet been developed to a stage where such predictions can be made. I certainly endorse what the noble Duke said about the adequate financing of this kind of research. On top of the continuous and accelerating rise in global temperatures witnessed since the beginning of the industrial age, there may discontinuities of that kind—the example that I have given is not the only one—when no matter what countermeasures are taken, there is a massive and unstoppable further rise. The IPCC considers a number of scenarios, the most optimistic of which assumes that world population peaks mid-century and that there is a rapid change towards a service and information economy; reductions in material intensity; the introduction of clean and resource-efficient technologies; and emphasis on global solutions to economic, social and environmental sustainability, including improved equity. The Bill can deal only with the contribution that the UK makes towards these objectives, but as a nation that is relatively profligate with the use of energy and energy-intensive materials, we have a special obligation to set targets that will achieve a more than proportionate reduction. Since the evidence is that the longer we delay taking action, the more painful the adjustment process will be, it is not only the goal we set for 2050 that matters, but what we do by 2020 that will be of even greater importance. Britain was a leader in setting the EU target of a 20 per cent reduction in emissions by 2020, and the Bill aims at 26 to 32 per cent. However, as 2020 is halfway through the period we are looking at, between 1990 and 2050, we should at least have the power to go further. I agree with the several noble Lords who said earlier that the limit of 32 per cent should be removed from the Bill. Only 9 per cent of our energy comes from low carbon sources now, yet the UK has the largest resources of wind, wave and tidal energy in Europe. If we set an ambitious target for 2020 the Government would have more incentive to get on with the Severn barrage and the Pentland Firth project, making planning consents easier for wind energy and encouraging the necessary portfolio of technologies including CCS, CHP, heat pumps and the generation of electricity from waste disposal sites, a matter in which I declare an interest. I welcome the energy-saving measures that the Prime Minister discussed last week, such as the tightening of building regulations so that all new houses will be zero-carbon by 2016, and help with the improvement of insulation of existing dwellings. We are going to reduce the carbon footprint of public sector buildings, including the Palace of Westminster—as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Chesterton—which uses the energy equivalent of 6,500 private dwellings. The European Union's adoption of an upper limit of 130 grams of CO2 per kilometre for all cars sold after 2012, reducing to 100 grams per kilometre by 2020—or, at the latest, by 2025—is far too modest, but we should include provisions in the Bill allowing limits of that kind to be enacted by order so that we can move with the technology. I agree, as other noble Lords said, that it is disappointing that international aviation and shipping emissions are excluded from the targets in the Bill unless they are brought in by regulations. Civil aviation now accounts for 6 per cent of UK emissions, but its effect is much larger because most of the greenhouse gases are emitted at high altitude where they do most harm. The European carbon trading scheme may have a marginal effect on the rate of growth but is not due until 2011. ICAO, which should be taking a world lead, abjectly failed to produce any strategy of its own at its recent meeting, simply endorsing IATA’s goal of increasing fuel efficiency by 25 per cent by 2020. And that depends not on the airlines but on engine and aircraft manufacturers, with the airlines not lifting a finger. Aviation leaves a gaping hole in the world’s climate change reduction programme and we would like to know what the Government and the European Union are going to do to plug it. Is it not incongruous to leave aviation out of a Bill intended to reduce emissions when official forecasts are that aviation will more than double from 17 million to 60 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent between 1990 and 2050?