---

Climate Change Bill [Lords]

We have heard this afternoon about one of the most important elements at the forefront of the need to pass the Bill resoundingly through the House: the international significance of what we do, and the way in which the Bill will be not just closely looked at elsewhere across the world, but seen in terms of the discussions that I hope will prove successful in developing international agreements on climate change as a serious and clear statement of this country's intent to play its full part in ensuring that climate change is combated both in this country and internationally. If we are thinking about the international effect, perhaps we need look no further than the successful Democratic nominee for the US presidential election in November, who, as hon. Members have already indicated, has already stated on his website and in his policy statements that he supports"““a market-based cap-and-trade system to reduce carbon emissions by the amount scientists say is necessary: 80 per cent. below 1990 levels by 2050.””" His website says:"““Obama's cap-and-trade system will require all pollution credits to be auctioned.””" Obama goes further than that; he states in his election platform that he will require 25 per cent. of energy in the United States to be provided from renewable sources by 2025. Indeed, he wishes to set national building efficiency goals and"““to establish a goal of making all new buildings carbon neutral, or produce zero emissions, by 2030.””" Well, he is not quite there, as far as the Government are concerned, given their aims for zero-carbon housing, but it is fair to say that one can already see in that plan a number of echoes of what the Government have been doing on climate change and the necessary actions to mitigate it. One can say with reasonable fairness that already what is being done has received echoes in some of the most important parts of the world that will be necessary to ensure that our climate change goals are met. The most important meat of the Bill is, of course, carbon budgets and driving down the carbon emissions that this country produces year by year, not just ensuring that, by 2050, we have a figure that looks right in 2050. As my hon. Friend the Minister has already emphasised, we need to ensure that the quantum of CO2 goes down every year and is not in the atmosphere at the end of the period and that that progress is made year on year. Therefore, the interim targets suggested in the Bill are equally important, as indeed are the trading arrangements that will enable those budgets to be maintained over that period. Banking and borrowing in the trading system are important in the carbon budget system. We need to listen carefully to what the Committee on Climate Change advises, but it is vital that we make the very clear link between carbon budgets and real reductions in CO2. We cannot get to the 2050 targets just by trading off others; we must make our own binding and long-term reductions in CO2 emissions. Above all, that will help to shape what a real sustainable low-carbon economy will look like. Borrowing our way into claimed low-carbon economic practices will simply not give the shape to the components of that 2050 economy. It is important therefore that that part of the climate change procedure for carbon budgets is right. It was good that the Government moved in the Lords to eliminate the retrospective amendment of a carbon budget when its period is over for that reason. It is important also that carbon budgets include all emissions. As we have heard this afternoon, that includes aircraft and shipping emissions, and the Committee on Climate Change should consider at an early stage how those are included under the Bill. Of course, it is essential that we understand the issues of measurement and the apportionment of responsibility. It is good that aviation is now included in the next stage of the European emissions trading scheme. However, to gain the real notion of what our emissions are, it is essential that such things are included, along with real reductions in carbon emissions year by year, in the carbon budgets at an early stage. Trading is important, but it has to be in a system that gives persistent, long-term carbon value. The Bill will greatly assist us in achieving that because of the comprehensive nature of the inclusions through which carbon budgets work. The carbon commitment will underline how important that is. That is the long-term legacy of the Bill; it is not about some distant debate in 2051, when someone will stand at the Dispatch Box to account for where we have got to with emissions—that is, if the House is still above water then, and the targets have not been seriously missed. The Bill is not about that debate as much as about the fact that at all stages we will need real, measurable and accountable mechanisms that keep the UK up to speed and on track. If the debate is about the point in 2050 when we learn whether the targets have been met or not, the House will have missed its one chance to make sure that the targets are met. If in 2050 we realise that we did not get things right, it will not be a matter of being sorry; it will be a matter of the planet's future taking a very different direction from the one it would have done if we had got things right. Getting the targets right will inevitably mean enormous changes to how energy is deployed, and to the use of renewables instead of the conventional fossil fuel that we have relied on for so many years. Of course, renewables are one of the greatest forms of insurance against rising fuel prices, because they allow us to secure energy that is based on a free source not subject to the price rises that occur as a result of the increasing scarcity of the fossil fuel supplied to developed economies. Getting the targets right will mean many changes, including enormous changes to how we plan our environment and create and dispose of waste. If we decide that we have to create a carbon value for exchange, we will have to do the same for waste and resources. We cannot create a carbon value for many things, but not do so for waste. We cannot continue to think of waste as something that we can throw around our environment, expecting it to be cleared up without taking any account of the consequences. That future need not be frightening, but it will be very different, and it will require all parties, whatever party is in government, to maintain the commitments in the Bill. In a sense, the Bill is very different from virtually any other Bill that I have been concerned with in my time in the House, as we cannot take it to pieces at a future date if the fancy takes us. It involves the House making a commitment now if we are to ensure that the Bill stays on the statute book until a guaranteed low-carbon economy has been achieved. In agreeing to the Bill's Second Reading today, we are declaring that we will not resile from its provisions. It is not a Bill that can be lost in limbo or watered down at a future date. It has to work, and it has to work now. I trust that that is the commitment that we in the House will all make when we agree to pass the Climate Change Bill, and I trust that we will make sure that it not only reaches the statute book but stays there—