Climate Change Bill [HL]

I have obviously been utterly ineffective in explaining this. One decides what to measure and businesses or industry—not governments—make decisions about whether to trade under an ETS. Governments set the cap through the Commission, through national allocation plans, and trading takes place. That can continue ad infinitum, whether this amendment has been accepted or not. The amendment determines what you count. The Government already have a purely UK emissions target without any trading and they will probably miss it. I think the target is 20 per cent carbon reduction by 2010. There is no difference between that being a target or that being law, but having that target does not stop the EU ETS happening now any more than the amendment would stop that happening in the future. It concerns what you measure, not what you have to do. Clearly, the EU ETS will continue and we hope it will be very successful in making carbon economies throughout Europe far more efficient, but it will not stop because you measure something that is different, just as the purely UK targets for carbon reductions, which allow no buying-in or buying-out, do not affect it either. They are exactly the same.