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Climate Change Bill [Lords]

I warmly welcome the Bill as an environmentalist and an economist. I congratulate the civil society campaign that made the case for such legislation, and I should especially like to mention the Friends of the Earth's Big Ask campaign. There is great public interest in the measure; I have held three public meetings on the subject in my constituency in the past year, each attended by more than 100 people. I agree with what many Members have said in this debate: the greatest responsibility for cutting emissions must rest with developed countries, because we are the largest emitters. It is the stock of carbon in the atmosphere that is warming the planet, not the emissions made year by year, and our country—the first to industrialise—and others like it have been large emitters for two centuries. One of the consequences of the Kyoto treaty is that we tend to focus on the responsibility of states to cut emissions, and of course they must do so, but sometimes that obscures the fact that a state's emissions are simply the aggregate of the emissions of the people in that state. It is important that we stress each person's responsibility to reduce their carbon footprint. Last autumn, I was asked to make a speech in India about the need to reduce emissions. It is a difficult place in which to make such a speech, because the Indians simply point the finger at us and say, ““Your emissions are far higher than ours. This is a problem that you've created; you solve it.”” However, one has to remember that the emissions of rich people in India are broadly the same as the emissions of people in this country. Per person, the emissions of the richest 10 per cent. of people in cities in India are 10 times that of the rural poor in India. The former have washing machines, air conditioning, refrigerators and cars, just as we do, so it is not just a matter of pointing the finger at the rich world. I should like to respond to the points made by the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley) about the danger that, if we enact such legislation, we will undermine the UK's competitive position. To an extent, he answered the charge himself, because with oil at $150 a barrel, becoming less carbon-dependent would surely make this country more competitive. It is also morally right to take action. When this country abolished the slave trade, we put our country at a commercial disadvantage, but it was the right thing to do. When we abolished child labour, the same charge could have been made; it could have been said that we were undermining the profitability of British industry. Nevertheless, it was the right thing to do.