Climate Change Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 107: 107: Clause 21, page 11, line 9, at end insert— ““( ) Regulations specifying a carbon unit must employ a definition which accords with international carbon reporting practice.”” The noble Duke said: I move this probing amendment on behalf of my noble friend Lord Taylor. It may raise more questions than it answers but, as was mentioned in debate on the Bill yesterday and has been mentioned before, the UK's attempts to curb carbon emissions must have a major domestic input, but with a constant eye to international agreements, trade practice and standards. Although the Bill shows many signs of alignment with international practice concerning emissions reductions—the five-year budgets, the provision for trading, the provision for amendment according to international treaties, and so on—when it comes to defining what is a carbon unit, it does not have any explicit regard for international reporting practice. Our amendment is intended to ensure that the correlation between the carbon units used in domestic carbon accounting accords with international practice as defined in Clause 66. Further to our discussion yesterday, I have looked into the matter a little more. As far as I understand it, carbon units are generated at the moment under four different international headings. Speaking briefly, and asking your Lordships’ forgiveness for the list of acronyms, there are AAUs, CERs, ERUs and EAUs. I will explain. Under the original Kyoto agreement, those countries that signed up were given national assigned amounts related to their 1990 outputs. Those allow them to have as a trading element assigned amount units. The next thing that came under Kyoto was the clean development mechanism. That was for countries that had signed up under Kyoto but had not undertaken to reduce CO2 emissions. They were allowed to generate units under clean energy reduction, or CERs. The third element of Kyoto that relates to carbon units was the joint implementation programme, where project-based emission reductions, such as those that we have all heard about in China and India, were allowed to create energy reduction units, or ERUs. Finally there are the allowances allocated under the EU ETS, which then give European allowance units, or EAUs. Perhaps the Minister can help us with whether there will be some body that can rule if any of those elements get out of line. Obviously, we want to align our carbon units with the most authoritative units that we can find. At present, as far as I understand it, those units are all equivalent. We understand that Clause 21(1)(c) refers to schemes or arrangements that might define what amount of greenhouse gas emission represents a carbon unit. However, we feel that carbon units should be explicitly linked to those employed internationally. I think that the Minister intends the carbon units used in the UK carbon count to accord with international reporting practice. We simply feel that, by making that explicit, we provide greater clarity in this part of the Bill and hope that the Minister will accept the amendment. If he does not intend carbon units as defined in the clause to correspond to carbon units as defined in current international reporting, can he explain why not? I beg to move.