Climate Change Bill [HL]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, for having brought me back to real people and individuals with choice at a micro-dimension in their own lives which we, in talking about the macro and the global, sometimes forget about. We are all aware that much of the change that will have to take place in how we live and in bringing down our carbon emissions will concern not just individuals being forced to do things but households being given incentives or motivated to make their own, individual, unforced contributions to reducing climate change. As the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, has said, households account for some 27 per cent of emissions—and, taking into account their transport, more than that. It is absolutely right that, as we start talking about sectors, we should particularly take the household sector, which I see as focused on individual citizens’ decisions on and reactions to global warming, and specify that in this part of the Bill. The noble Lord also brings up a particularly interesting point in looking at the targets against those that the Government already have. We are, indeed, nowhere near that 2010 reduction of 20 per cent. Again, that shows that the Bill is fine in what it does, but just having committees and targets does not mean that we will meet the latter or be successful in this important mission. The noble Lord mentioned the carbon performance of the UK economy over the past few years. When the Minister spoke about annual targets, it was interesting that he mentioned the big year-on-year changes in total greenhouse gas emissions during the 1990s; if only those still occurred! Regrettably, they do not, as we have almost completely flat-lined our carbon emissions over the past four or five years, and all the gains made pre-1997 have levelled off. The Bill must involve individuals and households in this matter and this amendment would make an important move towards achieving that goal.