Climate Change Bill [HL]

My Lords, it is an index of the importance that our world attaches to climate change that the first global conference that the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association ever held—under the auspices of the UK secretariat—should have been on climate change. The noble Lord, Lord Jay, chaired the first session of that conference at the end of November. I attended the conference, and I had to make up my mind on whether to attend the Second Reading of this Bill in the House or to go on attending the conference, and I chose to stay at the conference. One piece of evidence to emerge from that conference was from the polling of 18 to 34 year-olds, which had indicated that they had no intention of reducing the amount of flying that they did, compared to that done by their elders and betters, and, therefore, were not initially instantly going to modify their behaviour. A briefing sent by the British Youth Council to all Members of your Lordships’ House in advance of Second Reading, which it reinforced thereafter, said that the target figure should be 80 per cent. That indicates a discrepancy. I acknowledge that the British Youth Council goes up only to the age of 24 and that its members are younger than the 18 to 34 year-old group, but there is a discrepancy in attitude to behaviour and attitude to aspirational targets. We are more likely to achieve our ultimate objective if we seek to change behaviour and to demonstrate it during the evolution of this policy, rather than if we put it in the Bill now and do not wait for the Committee on Climate Change to give us its advice. In those circumstances, I hope that the willingness of the nation to adjust its behaviour will be more likely to occur.