Climate Change

I am always fascinated by cast-iron guarantees, so I shall look forward to reading that document as soon as possible. I want now to turn to our plans. The Committee on Climate Change has been bold in the recommendations in its first annual report to Parliament. I hope that, as with the Kelly report, we will adopt the CCC's entire recommendations without equivocation. That would call for a pretty massive transformation. However, the CCC still has a somewhat optimistic bias in its reading of the models. It is talking about projected annual carbon savings of 2 to 3 per cent., which is well beyond what we have managed in the past, without the assistance of a recession. We should carefully consider its recommendations, but also accept that they might be an optimistic basis on which to proceed. So far, what are the grounds for optimism in terms of delivering some of these changes? In the context of our Labour Government's overall economic investment strategy to get us out of recession, one bank assessment stated that the green component of the industrial strategy is about 7 per cent. In South Korea, it is 10 times greater. That tells us something about the difference between us, in that the South Koreans still plan their economy, rather than simply leaving it to the ravages of the marketplace. The Government have been open and honest about where we are potentially heading and about the impacts of global warming in various regions around the world, as the maps that have appeared on the Table before us illustrate. The Committee on Climate Change says that even if all its plans come to fruition—which is a big ask—we still have only a 44 per cent. chance of success. Having recently heard more of the science—and we are halfway through an IPCC review period, so still more of it is emerging—it is clear that a 4° increase in temperature is on the cards. That will, of course, lead to different temperature changes in different parts of the world: in the Arctic region, perhaps by 8° to 10°, and it might be of a similar order in equatorial regions. We are obviously in a mess, and very swift action is required to get us out of it. Sadly—my Front-Bench colleagues might anticipate my next remarks, and this is where I depart from the prognosis of the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal—we seem to want to adopt technologies that cannot deliver in time. Does anybody really expect either carbon capture and storage or nuclear technologies to deliver a single new green watt of electricity before, let us say, 2025? We are promised a new nuclear power station by 2017. Well, if neither the Finns nor the French can do it, are we really going to do it? I cannot see that happening. Let us say that the first will come on stream in 2025; then we will have to wait for the replacements to be overtaken before we start getting the new nuclear electricity. When will that happen—in 2030 or 2035? This is not a solution to the problem that will arise if emissions have not peaked and then started to reduce by 2025, because we will then have to make 12 per cent. reductions every year. Nuclear does not help us get to the peak point and neither does CCS—although I admit that, given the Indian and Chinese contexts, we have to confront the need for CCS. However, I think we could leapfrog its use in this country, while possibly still developing the technology. I had an exchange in the Environmental Audit Committee on Tuesday with some representatives of the CCS industry. I put it to them that they are playing a blinder on the Government. In the first phase of the EU emissions trading scheme, the power generators made billions of pounds of windfall profit from the ETS free allocation of credits. They did not spend a penny on CCS, yet now they come cap in hand to the Government asking for a few hundred million quid to bail them out and help them cope with that massive investment, which they say their shareholders cannot afford. I urge the Government to look very carefully at the power generators' arguments and to pin them down. The same practice should apply to the nuclear industry. An excellent document called "Nuclear subsidies", which is available on www.nonukes.org.uk, reveals the full extent of the nuclear subsidies. One of the biggest is the industry's unlimited insurance, which the taxpayer would have to pick up if something went seriously wrong. However, if the nuclear industry had to pay for it itself, it would force the price of electricity up far beyond the highest price we are anticipating paying for the brand new renewable technologies. As they are rolled out on a larger scale, the price of those technologies will come down and down, but that is not true of the nuclear industry, whose costs will go up and up—not just the cost of uranium, but all the other costs, not least the insurance and the extra costs of having to deal with proliferation. In conclusion, the Government have shown leadership internationally. I, too, believe that they have a lot more to do on delivering concrete, practical examples of progress on the ground. It is wrong to suggest that nuclear power and CCS are panaceas, because even if they are supported, they cannot be introduced in time—at least, that is the view of the IPCC's 2007 report, which I am sure will be superseded by a 2011 report showing that things are worse. I plead with my Front-Bench colleagues: next time they have people from the coal industry, the nuclear industry or the power generators knocking on their door, tell 'em where to shove off.