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Climate Change Bill [Lords]

I am slightly saddened that the Minister of Environment in the Northern Ireland Assembly is apparently more than 35 years behind me. That troubles me, but I will go no further into that. I welcome Government new clause 15 and amendment No. 72, which will mean that the Bill includes emissions from aviation and shipping. That is right, but I want to counterpoise that with the 80 per cent. cut by 2050. The right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer) was absolutely right when he cited T. S. Eliot, rather than George Eliot, on being two steps ahead. If we as politicians are one step ahead of the electorate, that is leadership. If we are two steps ahead, that is eccentricity. If we regard the inclusion of aviation and shipping as one step in that paradigm, the second step is the 80 per cent. cut. Trying to do both is unrealistic. Probably for the first and only time ever, I agreed with a great deal of what the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mr. Walker) said. Government amendment No. 1, to which we shall come later, talks about the 80 per cent. cut. We are talking about aviation and shipping, but one has to counterpoise them, because we cannot achieve both. We cannot include aviation and shipping and have an 80 per cent. cut by 2050. That will just not be possible. The baseline year for the percentage calculations is 1990. My figures for the United Kingdom are from DEFRA's website and are for the period 1990 to 2005, a 15-year period, which is one quarter of the period 1990 to 2050. One would not expect to make much progress in the first couple of years, but then the technological benefits should kick in, albeit before the law of diminishing returns starts to apply as we approach 2050, thereby lessening savings in CO2 emissions. However, my figures, which are for the first 25 per cent. of that period, show that CO2 emissions, which constitute 84 per cent. of the basket of greenhouse gas emissions in DEFRA's calculations, went down by 6.4 per cent. Overall greenhouse gas emissions in the United Kingdom went down by 15.3 per cent. in that period. For all our debate so far and for all the importance of cutting emissions and including aviation and shipping, as highlighted by new clause 15 and amendment No. 72, we are deluding ourselves and the electorate if we think that we as a society can include aviation and shipping, which we should, and have an 80 per cent. target for 2050.