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Local Government and Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

I make no apology for continuing to bang on about climate change. It is, after all, probably the most important topic to be debated in the Chamber since the war. It is just as great and palpable a threat to the entire human race as would be a catastrophic global war. The potential for casualties is just as great. I hope that we shall be able to build cross-party consensus on the Climate Change Bill. I hope that even those on the Conservative Front Bench are going in this direction, although I was a little worried when the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Mr. Pickles), during his music hall turn, managed to reduce the contents of the Climate Change Bill to a bin tax. I do hope that that is not representative of the Conservative approach. I have participated in the scrutiny of the Bill, through the Joint Committee, the Environmental Audit Committee and the public consultation. The scrutiny has revealed four main areas. The target is 60 per cent., but evidence is emerging from all sides that that is not adequate. In fairness, the Government have implicitly recognised that fact in their response to the consultation and to the Select Committee's recommendations, and they are setting out proposals to reconsider the target through the climate change committee. The time scale is too long, however. We need to have made the reconsideration and have the new target in place well before 2009, especially because, at the same time as we consider the 2050 target, we must consider the 2020 targets, which are just as important. They will determine the trajectory that we will take towards achieving the 2050 target and, as they are much closer, we shall need to revisit them much earlier. I doubt that anyone in the Chamber would be able to defend the figures that are at present in the draft Bill. They are far too modest, and far less than what could be achieved. By 2008, we should have much more ambitious targets in the Bill. I would suggest a minimum of 40 per cent. for 2020 and 80 per cent. for 2050. Other hon. Members have already pointed out that the Climate Change Bill is just a framework. It does not actually do anything in its own right, even if we address all the other points. The annual targets argument is probably redundant, because as long as we have clear annual reporting—to which the Government are committed—we shall achieve the same effect. We shall have a good, transparent tracking mechanism and we shall be able to see whether everything is going according to plan, and take action accordingly. I worry about the emphasis in the Bill on achieving results through emissions trading schemes of one kind or another. I have less faith than many in the effectiveness of such schemes. Certainly the initial stages of the European emissions trading scheme have not yet been proven to save any carbon dioxide emissions whatever. I do not think we should put all our faith in such schemes. One thing that became apparent from the business and industrial witnesses who appeared before the Joint Select Committee was that they were just as happy to respond to fiscal and regulatory measures as to emissions trading. The enabling provisions need to be wider to contemplate virtually anything that will contribute towards carbon saving. The main thing that will deliver the savings is a sensible energy policy, whether it is energy efficiency or energy production. Energy production will be dealt with in the energy Bill. I was a little worried by the terminology in the Queen's Speech which seemed to indicate that the Bill was bring driven by the same old political drivers that have always driven our energy policy—security of supply and short-term price. That has got us into trouble. Compared with the imperative of climate change, they are both fairly trivial considerations. The energy Bill—indeed, most legislation in that section of the Queen's Speech—needs to be judged against the climate change imperative and what contribution it can make towards it. In the context of the energy Bill, it worries me very much that we have leaks in the press, and I have every reason to believe that they are valid, of an options document from DBERR—I never got used to saying DBERR; it sounds like a character from Jane Austen—to reduce our target of 20 per cent. renewables by 2020. That would be the most abject admission of failure on the part of a country such as ours, which is very much at the technological leading edge of renewable energy and has probably the best renewable energy raw resources of any state in the world. We have a much better wind resource than any other European country, wave resources that are as good as anywhere in the world because of our exposure to the Atlantic, and tidal stream resources that are almost certainly the best in the world. With those three sources, we have the potential to produce twice or three times as much electrical energy as we currently consume. To demur from a 20 per cent. target when it is totally achievable would be lunacy. I very much hope that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs will use his voice to head off any attempts to demur from that target. In addition, because of our situation, we have the most magnificent industrial opportunity—a green industrial opportunity—to create hundreds of thousands of jobs in a new marine renewable energy industry, as well as in offshore wind. There are several reasons why we have not deployed renewable energy at the rate at which we should have done, and they are all within the Government's control; they can influence all of them. They are market considerations and the lack of a sufficiently stimulating fiscal structure. Frankly, the renewables obligation certificate system has been an expensive and inefficient way of promoting renewable energy. The entry price mechanism used by Germany and others has produced far better results at, as far as one can tell, no greater cost. At the same time as we revisit the ROC system, which we have to do anyway, I strongly recommend that we review the fiscal structures for renewable energy and look again at entry price mechanisms. They are transparent, simple to understand and reliable, and they generate investment and produce the goods—and it is the goods that matter. Then there is the planning system, which has already been mentioned. It takes twice as long in this country to obtain consents for an offshore wind farm as it does in, say, Denmark or Germany. Is the quality of the decision any different at the end of the day? I doubt it very much. That period absolutely must be shortened. When it comes to marine renewables, I too have a problem with the lack of a marine Bill. Tidal stream developments and the like are being held up because of the time allowed for environmental impact assessments, and consents thereafter. Putting large-scale developments in the hands of the planning commission, as has been proposed, would deal with a major wind farm, but smaller-scale developments that will be crucial in the future will remain in the hands of the present system, which is holding things up appallingly. Those matters need to be examined very carefully, and that can best be done if a marine Bill is produced expeditiously during the present Session.