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HOUSE OF COMMONS HANSARDClimate Change Bill (Lords)

6.59 pm
Mr. Michael Meacher (Oldham, West and Royton) (Lab): Along with everyone else, I strongly welcome the Bill. I also welcomed the patient and skilful manner in which it was introduced by my hon. Friend the Minister.
The latest figures show that greenhouse gas emissions have fallen by about 18 per cent. since 1990, although carbon dioxide emissions have marginally increased in several years during the last decade. There are two important caveats: first, that—as many people have said, and as the Prime Minister acknowledged in a speech on 19 November last year—the reduction required by 2050 must be at least 80 per cent. rather than 60 per cent. if there is to be headroom for developing countries to expand their economies while keeping within the overall global 2° C increase limit, which scientists say should not be exceeded without risk to the planet. On that basis, I draw the sobering conclusion that an 80 per cent. reduction by 2050 requires an annual reduction in emissions of at least almost twice the rate of the past two decades.
The second caveat is that—as, again, many have said—the Bill ignores the UK’s share of international aviation emissions, which Department of Trade and Industry figures show already account for 12.5 per cent., or one eighth, of the total UK impact on global warming. Indeed, I regret to have to say that because the Government are proposing to triple airport capacity, the Environmental Audit Committee calculates that by 2050 UK aviation emissions—let alone UK shipping emissions—might amount to almost half of all UK emissions. In introducing the Bill, my hon. Friend the Minister questioned the practicalities of including that data. I say to him that it would be entirely practical to include international aviation emissions in the Bill: the UK already reports on them regularly under the Kyoto protocol, and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has figures dating back to 1970 on how much fuel has been taken on board at UK airports.
However—and this is where I disagree with some Members’ contributions—even if aviation emissions are included in the Bill, another loophole still needs to be closed. At present, the Bill allows 100 per cent. of
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emission reduction targets to be met by buying carbon credits from abroad rather than by reducing emissions in the UK. I am in no way against using genuine carbon credits that have been earned abroad promoting clean development in other countries, but this is a question of balance, and there are two relevant arguments. One is that, unfortunately, the purchase of carbon credits overseas is sometimes open to highly dubious manipulation over the vexed issues of additionality and baselines; they are complex and can easily be manipulated, and there is clear evidence of considerable abuse. The second argument, which is the clincher, is that we will succeed in stopping climate change, or the worst affects of it, given the stage we have now reached, only if we in the west, who are primarily responsible for it as a result of our industrialisation over the past two centuries, can persuade developing countries—largely China and India, which alone have two fifths of the world’s population—that we are serious about tackling climate change. Buying all our credits from abroad simply will not persuade those countries that we are serious if at the same time we are taking an unsustainable path in our own country. That will produce only cynicism and resistance.
The fact is that the rich countries, with approximately 18 per cent. of the world’s population, are responsible for 54 per cent. of global emissions—three times our due share. Until that is dealt with, we will simply not get international co-operation, without which theentire climate change problem cannot be solved. We are 1 per cent. of the world population and account for 2 per cent. of global emissions. Even with Europe, we are a small part of the picture. This has to be global, and we have to persuade the rest of the world that we are deadly serious about tackling the problem.
Mrs. Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab): Does my right hon. Friend agree that one of the ways of convincing the newly emerging industrial countries that we are deadly serious is by sharing our new technology—by not holding it close to our chest, and by not holding on to patents, but by sharing them?
Mr. Meacher: I entirely agree, and I think that we could do a great deal more. There is a lot of talk about China starting two new coal-fired power stations every week. The best way of dealing with that is through the technology of carbon capture and storage. The problem is that there is probably no prototype anywhere in the world, and we need to do a great deal more than simply talk about this. I agree in principle, however.
Mr. Gummer: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that we could start by not building a coal-fired power station at Kingsnorth without that technology? We might set a bit of an example, while we are about it.
Mr. Meacher: I entirely agree—and, as so often, the right hon. Gentleman anticipates something I was going to say a little later.
We should in this Bill impose a reasonable limiting cap on the buying of carbon credits abroad to meet UK emission targets. Indeed, that was precisely one of the caveats that led a United Nations human development report issued in the last year to say:
“If the rest of the developed world followed the pathway envisaged in the United Kingdom’s Climate Change Bill, dangerous climate change would be inevitable.”
That is a very sobering reminder. This is a good Bill, but it is certainly not ambitious enough.

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That sober conclusion is given additional force by the fact that the Climate Change Bill is only a part, and probably a small part, of the UK’s overall strategy to combat climate change, and the rest of the strategy needs to be reviewed to see whether it is fit for purpose. I thought that some of it was now being brought into line. I thought that the Government accepted the amendment in another place providing powers for the Government to introduce mandatory reporting standards for carbon emissions by business. The need for that is overwhelming, as is shown by the carbon disclosure survey, which found last year that fewer than half of the FTSE 350 companies provided quantitative emissions data. Support for mandatory carbon reporting now comes from the CBI, the Aldersgate Group and a wide range of leading blue-chip companies and leading investors. Following my hon. Friend the Minister’s rather equivocal comments on this at the end of his speech, I ask the Government to look again at the matter, and to endorse clause 80 and not to seek in any way to water it down, but in time to extend it.
Further improvement is urgently needed in other aspects of the armoury of instruments to combat climate change. The Government must wean themselves off their continuing obsession with fossil fuels. It sometimes seems to me that the left hand in DEFRA does not know what the right hand in the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform is doing—or at any rate cannot stop it. It is extraordinary to respond to soaring oil and gas prices by—as we have seen in the past few weeks—trying to increase the supply of oil from the North sea where the prospects, in a state of continuing decline, must be virtually nugatory, and by making an increased commitment to nuclear, which is highly controversial in this House, and which, whatever one thinks about it, is not relevant as, quite apart from the other problems, it takes 10 to 15 years to build a nuclear reactor, rather than by taking the obvious long-term sustainable route: the fastest feasible expansion of renewables in this country. It is almost incredible that although we probably have more renewable capacity in this country than in any other in Europe, we are at bottom of the league in electricity regeneration from renewables—just 4 per cent. compared with 10 to 25 per cent. in Germany, France and Italy and 30 to 50 per cent. in Scandinavia.
We now have an EU mandatory target to provide 15 per cent. of all our energy from renewables by 2020, which is bound to mean that we have to produce at least 40 per cent. of it from electricity generation, yet it seems to me that DBERR spends its time not trying to meet the target but dreaming up ways to get round it in Brussels. What we need from the Government—from all the Government—is a precise strategy on exactly how they are going to meet that 15 per cent. target.
Mr. Chaytor: Does my right hon. Friend agree that, had the Government taken a decision shortly after 1997 to have a single Department responsible for power generation, energy efficiency and the response to climate change, we would now be much further down the road?
Mr. Meacher: My hon. Friend raises some very interesting issues with which historically I confess I had something to do. I will talk to him afterwards, rather than using the very limited time that I have available, but he has a very good point.

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I come to another DBERR failing, and to Kingsnorth and carbon capture and storage. No new coal-burning station should be licensed without carbon capture and storage. To be fair, the Government hinted at this, but as a result of lobbying that was supported in the media, they appear—I am not sure about this—to be backtracking. I have to point out to my hon. Friend the Minister that it is not enough to say that the plant will be CCS capable, because that simply postpones it indefinitely. Will he confirm that the Government will not license Kingsnorth without a requirement that CCS be installed and operated from the start?
There are several other issues. Building eco-houses is fine, but what about the other 99 per cent. of the stock? What about replacing renewable obligation certificates with feed-in tariffs? This is an excellent Bill but it needs to be improved.