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Carbon Dioxide Reduction Target

We have not met the Kyoto target yet because it is over the period of 2008 to 2012. The effect of the dash for gas might account for at most a third of our reductions in greenhouse gas emissions overall. Our other reductions in greenhouse emissions are a direct result of the Government’s actions on encouraging energy efficiency measures that have been taken by industry and the increase in the deployment of nuclear power during the 1990s. I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman cannot have it all ways. It simply is not true that all our performance on the Kyoto targets is down to the dash for gas. Nuclear has had a role to play, as has the Government’s climate change programme. We are forecasting that the UK will reduce its net greenhouse gas emissions by more than 23 per cent. in the period 2008-12 and carbon dioxide emissions by more than 16 per cent. by 2012. I admit that at the moment we are not on course to meet our target for 2010. It is a matter of regret, but we should not ignore the fact that making a 16.2 per cent. reduction, which is the latest projection, by 2012 is a significant commitment and achievement. Looking further afield, the measures announced by the Government, including those recently set out in the energy White Paper, should help us to cut carbon dioxide emissions by more than a quarter by 2020, relative to 1990, even though the economy will have doubled in size. We are demonstrating that we can have green growth—that carbon can be taken out of the economy—and at the same time have high and stable levels of employment. The debate has focused on the Government’s long-term 2050 target for reducing emissions. I want to address that in particular because it is the gravamen of the comments by my hon. Friend the Member for Morley and Rothwell. It is worth reminding the House that the Government have for some time recognised the need for a long-term target. That is why they committed themselves in the 2003 energy White Paper to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 60 per cent. by 2050, a target recommended by the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution. There is no obfuscation on where the at least 60 per cent. reduction set out in the Climate Change Bill comes from; it comes directly from the work done at that time. Some—including my hon. Friend the Member for Morley and Rothwell—suggest that that target is out of date, that the science has moved on, that the scale of the problem demands a greater response and that, consequently, the target for 2050 needs to be increased. Let me start by considering the response that is currently being recommended as part of the Climate Change Bill. As everyone knows, the European Commission has adopted the 2ºC limit as its stabilisation goal. It has said that for that to be met, the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases must remain well below 550 parts per million volume carbon dioxide equivalent. The European Union has said that that will require global greenhouse gas emissions to fall by between 15 and 50 per cent. below 1990 levels by 2050, with reductions in developed countries of between 60 and 80 per cent. As has been mentioned this evening, last year’s Stern review of the economics of climate change recommended a long-term stabilisation goal of 450 to 550 parts per million of carbon dioxide equivalent, and showed that globally emissions need to peak in the next 10 years or so and then fall by 25 to 70 per cent. below 2005 levels—equal to a 10 to 65 per cent. cut below 1990 levels—by 2050. That means that industrialised countries such as the United Kingdom must reduce their greenhouse emissions by at least 60 per cent. by 2050. The Stern review also set out a strong case for urgent action to reduce emissions. The longer the world waits, the more costly and difficult it will be to make the reductions that are necessary to stabilise at 450 to 550 parts per million carbon dioxide equivalent. The latest assessment report from the intergovernmental panel on climate change, published earlier this year, suggests that even more stringent reductions may be necessary. The panel’s best estimate is that to stabilise the global mean temperature at between 2ºC and 2.4ºC above pre-industrial levels, concentrations of greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere should be stabilised at between 445 and 490 parts per million carbon dioxide equivalent, and that that would require global emissions cuts of between 50 and 85 per cent. by 2050.