Climate Change Bill [HL]

My Lords, I take a rather different view. This is a missed opportunity of a Bill and a triumph of hope over reality. I had the honour to serve on the Joint Committee on the Draft Climate Change Bill and I congratulate the Government on at least attempting to make certain that the legislation is fully appropriate. But I am afraid that I am not sanguine about the long-term output of this Bill. I would particularly like to congratulate the secretarial staff and our excellent chairman, the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, on the exceptionally hard work that they put in to make something out of it. However, the Bill is long on budgeting and short on implementation and that is its potential weakness. In many ways, the only really charitable thing that one can say about the Bill is that it may improve the public’s perception of climate change and encourage fuel economy. As an example for the rest of the world to follow, it is far too complex and overregulatory. The truth of the matter is that in a global context any contribution that Britain can make to diminish global warming will not be even scientifically measurable. Meanwhile, the existing CO2 levels on the planet are sufficient to accelerate global warming even if the entire world’s carbon emissions were reduced to zero overnight. The Bill sets out complex, fanciful and unachievable limits on carbon reduction and unenforceable sanctions on any future Secretary of State for failing to meet targets, because no one Government can commit the next, as has been well said already in this debate. The truth of the matter is that the UK’s carbon output will rise dramatically as our ageing nuclear plants are phased out, due to the inept handling by the Government of our energy requirements over the past 10 years. The degree to which the British public will accept additional economic penalties for failing to meet targets is doubtful. People will not want to wear hair shirts for long, particularly when they see the rest of the world’s carbon footprint increasing dramatically. Knowing that the world’s population is likely to grow by some 3 billion in the foreseeable future will also add to their disquiet. Unless I have missed it, the question of world population has not been raised in this debate today, but human beings breathe out and use an awful lot of CO2 and population control should be one of the items at the top of our agenda if we want to control the world’s climate. The Bill is founded on, as much as anything, the concept of carbon trading, which, as has been said, the Financial Times called a scam. Carbon trading is a charter for international cheating through bogus assessments of allowances and fraudulent verification. I doubt whether in practice it will contribute anything worth while. In any case, the extent to which the UK purchases carbon emission allowances from abroad will obviously affect how other nations see the exemplary value of the UK, which, of course, is the main purpose of the Bill, as others have said. Trading our carbon outputs with the underdeveloped world is the modern equivalent of selling one’s sins to gain redemption. If such trading accelerates the introduction of sensible measures that really will reduce carbon on a massive scale, then so much the better, but I am doubtful. The whole concept is full of holes. However, that does not mean that one should not try to look at the whole question of global warming through more constructive eyes. If it is manmade and not a natural geological sequence, there are many sensible things that we can do about it. We should, of course, economise in every way, but economising will not save the planet. Energy use is the foundation of civilisation—ours in particular. Economic self-flagellation through enforced target setting would be deeply damaging to the economy and an expensive way of setting an example. In any case, it will, of course, be totally ignored by India, South America and China, whose carbon footprint is due to overtake that of the USA very shortly. Wave power, the Severn barrage, carbon sequestration, biomass, wind power etc may all help, but they are as yet largely underdeveloped and mainly unproven technologies. Not least, the intermittency of wind power limits its application and makes it extremely expensive. We should try to develop all these economically and sensibly, as they are good alternatives, but not at the expense of failing to utilise the one existing proven technology that we pioneered in this country—nuclear generation. Nuclear is the only way to make meaningful savings on carbon worldwide and quickly; it is the one technology that can actually save the globe. It is good to hear our Prime Minister at last start to talk about such real measures rather than trying to abolish plastic bags. It is high time all of us stopped listening to Greenpeace with its luddite policies. The nation has been held to ransom long enough and Greenpeace has, in turn, held up the development of nuclear for another year. We should aim, following the pattern of France, to reduce our dependency on oil and carbon fuels and go for an all-electric world as quickly as possible. We already have the technologies in hand to enable us to create an all-electric society within 50 years. New technologies may come along and have their place, but meanwhile we should get on with things. We should really set our sights not only on lighting our homes with electricity, but on heating our homes with electricity, running our trains on electricity and rapidly developing electric cars to run on electricity and be rechargeable from home—a development that is just round the corner. Above all, if we used carbon dioxide-free base-load nuclear power, our children and grandchildren would have a good future to look forward to. That could mean Britain building one nuclear power station a year for the next 30 years, but that is perfectly achievable if we set our minds to it. What is more, if we switch from carbon-based sources to nuclear fission and then fusion, the carbon footprint savings in the world would be so massive that they would more than offset any increase in aviation growth—currently 1.5 per cent to a projected 3 per cent worldwide. Aviation is the great transport emancipator of the 21st century and I cannot see the world doing without it. There are some 440 nuclear power stations in the world and 35 under construction, including six under construction in India. Our going extensively nuclear really would set a meaningful and practical example to the rest of the world. If global warming is as serious as many believe, it is made doubly so by our perilous energy position and our lack of energy security as oil runs out. The House should be deeply indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Howell, who has indefatigably tried to bring this to the attention of the nation. Energy security should be treated in the same way as defence of the realm and given economic priority in every way. Going nuclear electric would help to solve both problems. Meanwhile, we fiddle on the periphery of the problem: the Government fiddle while the climate burns. The Bill will be largely if not wholly symbolic. It is a token measure. It may make feel people feel good, but in practice it will do little good to save the world. There is hope for the globe, but not through micromanagement, overregulatory measures and the unrealistic thinking that this Bill promotes. I hope, however, that today’s debate will at least lead us to more realistic and effective solutions in the future that really will help to limit climate change.