Climate Change Bill [HL]

My Lords, like the noble Lord, I welcome the change in attitude of the Australian Government. I welcome also the commitments of the various American presidential candidates to move towards emission control systems. However, including aviation emissions in the Bill from day one would in no way prejudice that. Perhaps I may illustrate why that is the case in terms of Europe. We hope that the EU Emissions Trading Scheme will apply to aviation in 2011-12. In the agreements announced by the Commission last month, the aviation sector is not distributed entirely among member states; the international airline industry is treated almost as a 28th member state of the EU in terms of emissions. Therefore, however that solution is worked out in Europe, it does not help us to solve this issue for the Bill in this country. The UK already notifies international organisations of shadow figures for international aviation emissions based on bunkering. That may not be perfect—no system is—but, at some point, we have to make a choice. I see no merit in making a choice in 2012 as opposed to making a choice now. A decision taken then will be no more perfect than one taken now. In the mean time, we have an industry that is vital to the world’s economy but which also has a vital part to play in reducing emissions and the threat to the climate. I beg to move.