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Climate Change Bill [Lords]

I would like to move on, because I have a long, detailed speech to make. There is a limit on Back-Bench time already, and the Opposition have to have their say as well, quite rightly. If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I shall move on. The Bill makes statutory our commitment to reduce CO2 emissions by at least 26 per cent. by 2020 and by at least 60 per cent. by 2050. The level of the 2050 target has been a matter of much debate and I want to add a bit more detail. It is clear that the science has moved on since the target was originally set. We believe that the best way to respond is, as my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister announced in November, to ask the Committee on Climate Change whether the target should be tightened up to 80 per cent. The committee, with its scientific and economic expertise, is best placed to analyse the facts and provide authoritative advice on the appropriate target. It is a better and more credible way of deciding on the matter—and decide we must—than plucking a new target figure out of the air, as it were. The committee's review of the target, which the Bill makes statutory, will take place in the coming months, alongside consideration of the first three carbon budgets, and will be completed by December this year. It will also include the question of whether and how the other internationally recognised greenhouse gases should be incorporated in our targets, rather than simply CO2. We will use the powers in the Bill to do that, if it is what the committee recommends. The Bill begins with a purpose clause, which was added in the other place, linking the Bill's objectives to the EU's ambition, which we support, of limiting global temperature rise to 2° C through a global effort. Much as we support the overall goal, I cannot see how that requirement fits into a piece of UK legislation. Any measure based on global temperatures means that we are dependent on what happens elsewhere in the world—in other words, on things outside of our direct control. The UK cannot, through domestic legislation, tell other countries what to do; nor can we legislate to control global temperature—but we can control our own overall emissions, which is why the Bill places a duty on the Secretary of State to reduce the net UK carbon account. We will therefore seek to remove clause 1. One of the Bill's most radical and distinctive features is the framework that it creates for delivering and monitoring the reductions in emissions required to achieve the 2020 and 2050 targets. It establishes a system of five-year carbon budgets, set up to 15 years in advance, to make clear the direction that we are taking and provide greater certainty for business. We propose to strengthen our commitment in the Bill to building a low-carbon economy in the UK. However, we are unable to accept the limit that the other place inserted on the balance between domestic effort and internationally traded credits, because the limit set is arbitrary and undermines clause 34, which asks the Climate Change Committee to advise on the use of credits. We need to ensure that the Bill supports our efforts to secure the ultimate prize of a comprehensive global deal to tackle climate change. Investment in low-carbon technologies through the international carbon market is an important part of that.