---

National Policy Statements (Energy)

I am very happy to follow the earlier speeches of the hon. Member for Hove (Mike Weatherley) and, perhaps less surprisingly, the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood). I only wish that the latter and his colleagues were in a position to vote according to how they have spoken if there is a vote later this evening. Time is very short, and I wish to make just three points. One is about the overall targets in the national policy statements, one is about energy from waste, and I will finally say a few words about nuclear. When I intervened on the Minister earlier about the overall emission reduction targets set out in the fourth carbon budget, I sensed a certain irritation that I kept standing up to make the point that although the targets were ambitious compared with other countries—I certainly give the Government that—they were not ambitious enough. I am sorry if that makes me a bit of a Cassandra in the House, but the Tyndall Centre, one of the foremost institutes on climate change in this country, states that the targets set out in the fourth carbon budget set us on course for having only a 60% likelihood of avoiding the 2° C temperature rise threshold. If I were to say to anybody in the House, ““If you step on this aeroplane, it's only got a 60% chance of reaching its destination safely””, the chances are they might just think twice before getting on the plane. It seems extraordinary. If any other area of Government policy was knowingly designed with such a low chance of success we would be up in arms, so why are we not when it comes to the very survival of the planet? Let us not forget that the 2° C threshold is not the distinction between acceptable climate change on the one hand and dangerous climate change on the other. It is the difference between dangerous climate change and very dangerous climate change. That is the lens through which I would like us to look at the national policy statements tonight. I wish to make a brief point in support of the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr Havard), who rightly questioned the Government's classification of incineration or energy from waste as a renewable energy source. Given that a significant amount of the material that goes into incinerators is not made from renewables, and that they can often emit at least a third more carbon dioxide than a modern gas-fired power station, it is hard to see quite why they are considered a renewable source. Furthermore, massive new incinerators such as the one at Newhaven, near my constituency, lock local authorities into providing huge quantities of waste for very many years. The contracts last many years and, under them, a minimum amount of waste is required to feed the incinerators. We are therefore locked into the process, which inevitably discourages waste reduction, reuse and recycling efforts. The final point that I wish to make is about nuclear. Nuclear power is unsafe, uneconomic and, more than anything else, simply unnecessary. We do not need it. Of the Government's 17 possible pathways to delivering 80% CO2 reductions by 2050, four include no energy from nuclear or coal by 2035. A recent report by WWF and others concluded that by 2050, it would be perfectly possible to generate 95% of global energy supplies from renewable sources alone. There would of course be a need for up-front investments to make the transition, in the order of 1% to 2% of global gross domestic product, but the report also found that that investment would turn into a positive cash flow after 2035, leading to a positive annual result of 2% of global GDP in 2050. In place of nuclear, renewables are quicker to deliver, can meet our energy demands and have a huge potential to boost the UK's economy. There are far more green jobs in renewables than there ever are in fossil fuels. It is not those of us who advocate renewables who are living in the dark ages. To the contrary, it is Members such as the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr Lilley), who seems not to know about such things as storing energy, European super-grids or the fact that we are talking not about one single energy source but about a whole range of renewable sources that, together, can provide the energy that we need if the political commitment and will is there. Nuclear energy is incredibly unsafe, as Fukushima has shown us, and massively expensive. More than ever, it simply is not needed. I call on hon. Members to consider that carefully when we hopefully come to vote on it later tonight.