Climate Change Bill [HL]

The Minister is quite right but I wanted to have this discussion. As regards leadership pretensions, the Bill will be thoroughly dissected by other countries and we need to be absolutely certain about which bit of ground we are standing on. To some people the relevant phrase will look like weakness, and we have to recognise that. I accept the practical realities of the situation. The noble Lord, Lord Woolmer, is quite right; we certainly do not want to become isolated on this issue, and I had no intention that we should. But the other way of looking at this—if we qualified it a bit—is that it would set a rather more severe and challenging 2050 target. One could perhaps come back with an amended amendment that would do that. However, it was important to have this discussion and I do not apologise for having it. Too many aspects of trading in carbon swaps and carbon offsets have, frankly, verged on the fraudulent. Even with the United Nations clean climate initiative, there are still large question marks over much of the trade that goes on because it is not a universally accepted standard and so there are very real difficulties with it. There was even a report in the Financial Times some months ago that the Chinese were thinking of bringing in a tax on the payments that investors in carbon saving technology were receiving because for some Chinese firms their income from these carbon offsets was greater than their income from anything else. I did not like the idea that we should make that sort of fiscal contribution to the Chinese Government. So the question of this international trade in carbon certificates needs very strong and internationally agreed controls. It does not yet have that. For so long as that is the situation we shall have trouble in this area. This has been an extremely useful discussion. I am very grateful to those Members of the Committee who took part in it. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.