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Climate Change Bill [Lords]

Yes, that is true to a great extent, except that new clause 11 provides a power for the Secretary of State to set what might be described as a kind of licensing condition. That is a suitable power for a Secretary of State to have. Of course, a future Secretary of State in a different Government could say, ““We'll help Poland out by buying some of their old coal-powered power stations and setting the limit so high that we can set them up here.”” In that sense, my hon. Friend's point is correct, but no sensible Secretary of State would do a thing like that. The provision is about reducing the emissions from generation. Lord Turner said that by 2030, we should be aiming for emissions of 50 kg per megawatt-hour, which seems an extremely ambitious programme. If that kind of aim appears in the Committee on Climate Change's thinking when it sets its budgets, this Government—or any Government—will have a real problem on their hands. A power such as that in the new clause would help them to deal with that. Jim Hansen at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Centre, perhaps one of the world's leading climate change scientists, has said that a complete ban on new coal-powered power stations that do not have CCS must be implemented immediately if we are to achieve our targets. Al Gore, who I think still advises the Prime Minister on climate change, is on record as encouraging young people to place themselves in front of bulldozers that are preparing to build new coal-powered plants. Of course, many such plants without CCS are to be built in the United States, unless new President Obama deals with the situation. We should think again on the subject, and not have a ““We'll do better than you”” kind of debate. A lot of people outside the House are expecting clear guidance on CCS. Of course, we will have to use it to deal with the Polish and German problems in the EU; there is a great dependency on coal in Germany. I hope that the Front Benchers will reconsider their total opposition to such a proposal.