Climate Change Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 183ZK: 183ZK: Schedule 6, page 62, line 6, at end insert— ““(3) It is the duty of the Administrator to ensure that only renewable transport fuel that— (a) causes or contributes to the reduction of carbon emissions over its total lifecycle from planting or production to use, and (b) contributes to sustainable development and the protection or enhancement of the national or global environment generally, qualifies as a permitted fuel under this Act.”” The noble Lord said: I congratulate my noble friend Lord Greaves on his scrutiny of the previous section on these schemes and getting through that part of it by almost 10.30 pm. As no doubt everyone has noticed, this amendment should really be a substitute for new Section 125A(2) rather than an additional clause. The renewable transport fuels obligation is important not just as part of the UK’s climate change strategy but at European level, and has been an area of great debate and focus, particularly over the past year, in terms of the contributions that biofuels make to tackling climate change—or indeed the negative effect they can have on it. Although the way in which the Government have written the Bill recognises the issue, we believe that it needs to be strengthened. In the amendment we have tried to clarify what carbon reduction means. We want to be explicit that it is over the total life cycle from planting to production, and that it has to be seen from a global as well as a national perspective. We also want to introduce the idea that for fuels to qualify at all under the RTFO, they have to have these qualities. The European Commission, in setting its own target last week of 10 per cent for biofuels by 2020, went far beyond the Bill and our amendment to define a qualifying fuel for the relevant directive as showing a 30 or 35 per cent reduction in carbon emissions on normal fuels. Do the Government now intend somehow to incorporate that same definition into this section of the Bill? How do they see the two being reconciled? I beg to move.