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Climate Change

My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement made by his right honourable friend in another place. May I also add my thanks and the thanks of my colleagues toSir Nicholas Stern and his assistants for this landmark report which so adequately puts the problem of dealing with global warming into a proper perspective. It is better to act now than to attempt to clear up a mess later. The report is in considerable contrast to the Government’s approach to energy matters up until now. The last energy White Paper and indeed the preamble to the latest energy review both concentrated on security of supply using traditional fuels. The contrast is even deeper with the rather extraordinary meeting between European Prime Ministers and President Putin only 10 days ago which rather appalled me—they appeared to be grovelling in order to secure supplies of gas from Russia. The question is: will we now begin to see real action to develop green fuels and thereby really tackle the issue of carbon dioxide emissions? All this of course illustrates the international nature of the problem and the depth of change in attitudes that will be required if we are to succeed. One only need mention three countries—China, India and the United States—to see that all too often short-termism is the dominating sentiment that is ruling policy. Developing green energy sources is apparently a very low priority for any government in the present era. It is to be hoped that Sir Nicholas’ report will change that. In the Statement—on page 3 of the copy—there is a sentence that I found puzzling. It refers to the specific need to develop low carbon transport fuels and says: "““That is why the UK has initiated a joint task force with Brazil, South Africa and Mozambique to promote the development of a regional sustainable biofuels industry in southern Africa””." That may all be very worthy but I was not aware that Brazil was in southern Africa, still less in the UK, nor that half the southern hemisphere constitutes a region. This is very peculiar and I suspect it is simply a device to secure large supplies of imported biofuel, which would be a kick in the teeth for British agriculture. The policy is short-sighted for two reasons. First, if that were the case, transport costs would of course not be very green and, in the longer run there is not enough land—and I have said this in this House before—to produce both biofuels and food for society, so this can only be a short-term Statement. Sir Nicholas mentions the need for green fuels; there is no mention in the Statement, or in anything else I have seen, of the development of hydrogen, which is the ultimate zero emissions fuel. Only one domestic action is mentioned in the Statement—the creation of the Energy Technologies Institute. There is no mention of green taxation, widely floated in the media, which apparently had access to the report long before us. I recognise that that is a matter for the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but I would be grateful if the noble Lord could help us with a statement of principle. Are green taxes to be additional revenues for the Government, or substitute revenues? In other words, as green taxation increases—I hope it will be a carbon-based tax if we have any green revenues—will other taxes be reduced as it is introduced? Otherwise the tax burden on society will increase, which will not be very helpful at this time. Can the Minister help us on that? The truth is that under this Government carbon emissions have increased for five of the past eight years. It is true that the Government are still meeting their Kyoto targets, but the outlook is worsening rather than improving, and it will take very positive action to reverse the developments in the economy and get carbon emissions under control. I look forward to the Minister’s response.