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Climate Change

It is one of the sad realities of the world that, when the Doha development round collapsed and pushed back any hope of achieving the millennium development goals or a fair trading system, it showed the great disconnect between the liberalisation and globalisation agenda and that of climate change. There is no connection whatever between those two parallel tracks. There was no connection between Hong Kong last year and Montreal—no discussion, no cross-fertilisation of ideas. The EAC conducted an inquiry into that subject, and what we have discovered so far is rather depressing. In the WTO, the environment is sidetracked, outflanked all the time and is treated as almost an unpleasant little add-on that will prevent the WTO from achieving its objectives. However, the two issues must be addressed hand in hand. That would deal with some of the issues raised. There is another kind of objection to contraction and convergence. A World Resources Institute report, ““Navigating the numbers: greenhouse gas data and international climate policy””, states:"““International agreements predicated on equal per capita emission entitlements are unlikely to garner consensus.””" It goes on partially to explain why, but ends by stating:"““However, it is important to note that the implementation of virtually any national or international climate change policies is likely to have the effect of promoting a convergence in per capita emission levels over time. Considering that over the long term net emissions must fall to zero, convergence is a corollary of climate protection.””" That is a statement of the bleeding obvious. It is logical and rational. Why have we been running away from that logical, rational position for the past 15 years? We as politicians ought to address that, and—in the light of an earlier intervention about how to face up to the electorate—we should take on board the radical thinking that is now perhaps beginning to be taken up as the mainstream thinking, and welcome proposals such as the personal carbon allowances scheme or domestic tradable quotas, which was the subject of a Bill that I presented two years ago. We should look into such matters very seriously. We should look into matters such as the new carbon-reducing scheme for individuals of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, and into the carbon rationing schemes that people throughout the country are voluntarily starting. I recently visited such a scheme in Oxford. Such schemes are gathering pace. People are not waiting for us to do things; they are doing things themselves. In terms of the markets, we are putting too many eggs into one basket. If that basket were called contraction and convergence, I for one would be very much more confident that it would achieve some success. I am a strong supporter of the contraction and convergence framework, and I hope that the Bill that I presented last December will eventually be taken up by DEFRA, in the same way that I feel that, to a certain extent, the Secretary of State has taken up the issue of personal carbon allowances. If we were to have personal carbon allowances—a radical policy—some people would say that we were telling the electorate that they have to make a great many sacrifices. As those Members who have already signed up the ““25/5 challenge”” of the all-party group on climate change to reduce carbon emissions by 25 per cent. in five years will know, the sacrifices do not hurt very much—in fact, people do not even notice some of them. We could go down that route, but it would need support. That relates to my final point: the need for a cross-party consensus. This year, I visited all three party conferences—I might not make a habit of doing so. I escaped as quickly as I could from the Tory and Liberal Democrat conferences at Bournemouth and Brighton to get back to the warmth of Manchester. However, if we are to tackle this issue seriously, we need a cross-party consensus. I have a copy of the report that the cross-party group produced. Three very distinguished but totally independent people wrote it, and a great deal of evidence was submitted. If we do not have a consensus, I do not see how we can put in place the policies that will tackle the problem. As I have said, that problem is now being described in much starker and harsher terms than even the talk of 60 per cent. by 2050. A Tyndall centre for climate change research report was commissioned by the Co-operative Bank and Friends of the Earth. It talks about figures in respect of carbon emissions: 3 per cent. per annum is a big ask, but even if that is compounded it is insufficient to tackle the problem that we face. It also talks about between 6 per cent. and 9 per cent. per annum, and that is predicated on our doing the biggest part of the job early—instead of waiting until 31 December 2050 and then having a big shutdown in carbon emissions. That means that the policies required go far beyond a bit of taxation, a bit of regulation and a bit of market intervention. It means that we will have to do things that some of our voters will not thank us for. I hope that we will progress with talks on a consensus, and build a bridge before we drive the policies across. We should proceed on that basis.