Climate Change: Carbon Budgets

My Lords, I crave your indulgence as this is my first speech from our Front Bench. I feel slightly like a student giving a dissertation; will I or will I not pass under such scrutiny from the eminent gentlemen in this room? It has been a privilege to listen to the debate and to the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Stern, which was of course brilliant, and to witness again the noble Lord, Lord Giddens, whose tennis I have already witnessed. In the past three weeks, I have heard two very illuminating speeches on this subject. I also congratulate the noble Lords, Lord Krebs and Lord May, who, as authors of this report, have produced a fine document which we value on these Benches. I also thank my noble friends on this side of the House for their contributions. I look forward to hearing the Minister, whom I have admired for his great skill, with which he has dodged bullets and sometimes defended the indefensible. He will have to do so again now. However, I thank him for allowing us to debate this. My own modest interest is that, as a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, I have sponsored a carbon footprint research programme, and I am chairman of the Harnham Water Meadows Trust, which is on the doorstep of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Salisbury. However, I shall confine myself to the report. With the backdrop of Copenhagen, this report is an indictment of the Government’s claim to be a global leader. It states unambiguously: ""Emissions reductions in recent years have been very modest"." The Government have for 13 years wasted many opportunities, and the Committee on Climate Change is still trying to persuade them to act on matters of importance on which there should be no disagreement. Yet the Government seem to be doing very little about it. The noble Lord, Lord Krebs, says that the Government are better on process than on action. Under Labour, we have seen an 11 per cent increase in emissions from transport and a 12 per cent increase in coal generation over the past year alone. Indeed, under Labour our reliance on fossil fuels has actually grown. As the noble Lord, Lord Stern, said, from next year, if Copenhagen is successful, our emissions must be cut by 3 per cent per annum. The Government have come nowhere near that figure so far. We are currently languishing, as the report tells us, at 1.74 per cent, below the 2 per cent target. As the noble Lord, Lord May, said, the Government have fallen behind the run rate. It is therefore no surprise that the Government cannot keep their own house in order. Government buildings became 18 per cent less efficient between 2006-07 and 2007-08. What steps are the Government taking to improve the embarrassing performance of their departments? The Government have also failed to meet their manifesto emissions target, their renewable energy target and have failed to set a microgeneration target. What radical change of policy are the Government planning to set them on course to attain those targets? I fully endorse the committee’s warnings that the Government must not take any cuts in emissions that result from the recession as a sign of success in their policies. I hope that the Minister will agree with the committee’s conclusion that the rosy figures for last year indicate a cyclical trend rather than underlying improvements and that the Government will not try to claim credit for reductions that are entirely down to the recession. This is an excellent report. My right honourable friend David Cameron has led the way in forming concrete policies to address climate change and cut emissions; many of those policies are endorsed in the report. In answer to the noble Lord, Lord Giddens, our role is leadership, which, as the report states, has not been forthcoming from this Government. That is a pledge from our party. The report highlights just how damaging to the long-term outlook of this country this dependence on carbon-heavy energy resources is. The Government have taken a long time in implementing even pilot studies around carbon capture and storage. The necessary legislation is only just now before Parliament. The report also makes it clear that we cannot rely on the price of carbon remaining high enough to drive CCS development. Our policy of ensuring that every new power station meets a carbon emissions performance standard is critical if we are to avoid short-term fluctuations in pricing mechanisms, setting back our long-term drive to cut emissions. We also find it difficult to understand why the Liberal Democrats walk out of tune with this report and continue to oppose any nuclear power stations, despite their low-carbon advantages. It has taken a very long time to extract the necessary planning, which we quite understand, but it has now arrived and I hope that the Government will move forward rapidly in this area. If we have a modest disagreement with the report—and it is modest—it is that it suggests that there may be scope for up-front financing. We think that there is scope for such financing, and we would immediately introduce a "green deal", giving every household up-front funding worth £6,500 for efficiency work, which would be paid back out of future savings. How do the Government intend to meet their carbon credits without up-front pricing support for work such as solid wall or loft insulation? Our green deal is a practical solution to that, and I hope that it will be embraced by the Government. We also fully support the report’s concern for energy-efficient appliances, but we ask the committee to give consideration to the fact that the average boiler lasts only 10 years, whereas the committee is talking about replacing them in the next 12 years. We hear rumours, which we find encouraging, that the Government intend to give a little support to people to upgrade their boilers. If that is true, we would be very grateful to hear from the Minister. The report makes very interesting reading on the steps necessary to reduce emissions from cars. For example, it identifies the need for a reliable network of public charging points, as referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Giddens. What are the Government going to do to roll out that network and keep up with their international competition? The difficulties facing the scheme are a timely reminder that everything possible must be done at an international level as well as at a more local one. We watch with interest to see whether Copenhagen makes significant progress, or whether it will just be a talking shop. This report shows, and many here agree, just how much has yet to be done to ensure that the UK plays its proper part in developing and implementing a low-carbon economy. The Government have, I am afraid, grandstanded and spun a tale and have failed to deliver either consumer incentives or long-term strategic goals for investors. They must now show, as the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, said, some form of leadership. This report calls for a step change. What will that step change be?