Net-zero Emissions Target: Fossil Fuel Extraction Projects
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts(2 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Callanan (Con)
It is indeed compatible with our climate change goals. The proposed development of the Cambo oil field, located to the west of Shetland, is covered by licences originally awarded in 2001 and 2004 by the noble Baroness’s Government, and no decision has yet been made. Proposals for the development of oil and gas fields under existing licences—such as Cambo—are subject to extensive scrutiny by the regulators. That scrutiny includes a full environmental impact assessment and a public consultation. No final decision has yet been made.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
Our own dear Prime Minister, when asked about the coal mine in Cumbria, said that he was not in favour but that it was not his decision; it was for due process. Does our Prime Minister not understand how democracy and government work? He could amend the National Planning Policy Framework to ban new coal. Will the Minister take this idea to the Prime Minister so that we can stop at least one more fossil fuel extraction process?
Lord Callanan (Con)
I am of course delighted to hear that the Prime Minister is dear to the noble Baroness. But, as I think she is aware, no decision has yet been taken on the proposed Cumbrian coal mine. The public inquiry began on 7 September. The formal part of the inquiry has now concluded. The planning inspector will write up his report by the end of the year and submit it to the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. It is now part of a quasi-judicial process, so the noble Baroness will understand that I cannot commit the Government to any action.
Climate Change: Trade Policy
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts(2 years, 6 months ago)
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Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
Being endlessly flexible and trying to help out the Government, I was prepared to do either Question; I would just like to register that. But on the question of trade, it is clear from yesterday’s climate-unfriendly Budget that this Government have no climate change ambitions for trade. They are absolutely ignorant about what they need to do. Would the Minister agree?
Lord Grimstone of Boscobel (Con)
My Lords, I think the noble Baroness is uncharacteristically rather unfair on this matter. I am prepared to repeat again that we are committed to upholding the UK’s high environmental standards. I do not agree with her about the Budget given in the other place by my right honourable friend yesterday. I repeat again: we will continue to pursue the whole range of mechanisms available to us to achieve our ambitions for net zero.
Climate Change: Global Temperatures
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts(2 years, 6 months ago)
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Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, published on 9 August; and what policy areas they intend to reassess in response to the finding that global temperatures are rising faster and will have worse consequences than previously predicted.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Lord Callanan) (Con)
The IPCC report reaffirms the importance of net zero. On 19 October, we launched the net-zero strategy, supporting up to 440,000 jobs and leveraging up to £90 billion in private investment by 2030. Our strategy sets out clear policies and proposals for keeping us on track for our coming carbon budgets and our ambitious NDC.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
How on earth does that and the Government’s net-zero plan fit with the fact that the Chancellor has just given us a Budget that is so carbon intensive that we should all just give up everything that we are bothering to do? He has reduced the duty on domestic flights, which are the most carbon-intensive form of travel, and he has frozen the fuel-duty escalator for the 12th year. This Treasury does not understand the climate emergency, and the noble Lord, who hears us all here, has to take that back.
Lord Callanan (Con)
Of course I always take the noble Baroness’s comments back to the department for discussion, as she well knows. I think that she is being a little unfair with her comments and I know that she would not want to be. The Chancellor has also announced £3.8 billion-worth of funding for domestic low-carbon heat installation systems, social housing decarbonisation and public sector decarbonisation—we talked about that in our statement a few days ago. It is important to bear in mind that many communities in the UK—people who live on remote islands et cetera—rely on their air services. Domestic aviation accounts for less than 1% of UK emissions. I also remind the noble Baroness that the Chancellor recently announced considerable funding—something like £180 million—for sustainable aviation fuel.
Trade Policy: Environmental Considerations
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts(2 years, 6 months ago)
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The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)
Lord Curry of Kirkharle? Not present? I call the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
The Minister seems to be ignoring the fact that Australia has much lower food standards—incredibly low. It uses paraquat, which has been banned for years here in Britain, and antibiotics, which are also banned. Of course, we now have a trade deal with New Zealand—are we going to fly those kiwi fruits in? Australia also has incredibly low animal welfare standards. The Minister is ditching our better food for the sake of some boastful statement he can make here in the House.
Lord Grimstone of Boscobel (Con)
The noble Baroness’s question veers toward the unfair. What do I see when I read the Australia free trade agreement? I see a comprehensive environment chapter with Australia that protects our rights to regulate to meet net zero, sets our shared commitment to building mutually supportive trade and environment policies, and establishes co-operative efforts to support our green economy through trade in a range of areas. That seems to fit the bill.
Energy Prices: Electricity Bills
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts(2 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord Callanan (Con)
I outlined earlier the support mechanism that we already have in place: the warm home discount, the winter fuel payment, cold weather payments and an additional £500 million household support fund, which has been available to councils to help the most in need over the winter.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
The Scottish Parliament, through the Green Party Minister Patrick Harvie—
Noble Lords
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
It has committed £1.8 billion to home energy efficiency measures. Given that this Government want to be world leading and they have a bit of a gap to fill, will they commit a proportionate amount—bearing in mind that there are 10 times more homes in England—of £18 billion?
Lord Callanan (Con)
I have not had a chance to meet the noble Baroness’s colleague yet. I was supposed to meet him a couple of weeks ago, but the meeting was cancelled. I look forward to discussing these important matters with him. As the noble Baroness will be aware, we are already spending considerable sums on home insulation and heating upgrade measures—some £1.3 billion over the last year. Of course, I cannot predict what might happen in the Chancellor’s spending review, but we are already investing considerably in home insulation measures.
Net-zero Carbon Emissions: Behaviour Change
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts(2 years, 8 months ago)
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Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, I too congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, on this debate; I wish we could have this sort of debate every day. It is absolutely true, as the noble Baroness, Lady Bull, said, that our young people are terrified. We need to talk solutions. I try to offer solutions in this Chamber, but I am afraid that the Government simply do not understand the urgency. This is an emergency and a crisis, and the Government are not stepping up. For all their fine words, they do not measure up to the task.
Most of us here in this Chamber will die of old age; that is what I suspect we would all like. By contrast, many of the young people at school today will die from the consequences of climate change: flash floods, droughts, and conflicts brought about by shifting climatic conditions. It is going to be an unstable world—more than it is already.
I will deal with only one aspect of this crisis: sea level rises and their impacts. To some extent, of course, every single person has to do something—behaviour change has to be universal—but I am afraid that the Government have to take the lead on this. The Government can make it easy for people, and at the moment they mostly are not.
In 2007 the IPCC had a worst-case scenario of a 0.5-metre sea level rise in the next 100 years. It was a fairly reassuring analysis that did not include any figures from melting glaciers and ice sheets, because that was not going to happen in anyone’s lifetime. The evidence started to say otherwise, and has rapidly changed with each new report from a satellite or Arctic monitoring station. Every IPCC assessment in the last 14 years has shifted the worst-case scenario much closer to us. The most recent assessment has shifted everything upwards again, but the really terrifying bit is that, due to the IPCC’s rigorous process of analysis, consensus building and governmental oversight, those conclusions are already likely to be out of date.
Any debate we have in this place or the other place needs a new starting point. In the last year, a large section of the scientific community has realised that the models were wrong and that we have lost the 70- to 90-year buffer we thought we had to turn these things around. Things that were not meant to happen until 2100 are happening now. The poles are warming at twice the rate of the rest of the planet, as receding sea ice reduces the ability to reflect heat back upwards and melting permafrost releases methane that creates a warming cloud of local gases. The decline of the Greenland ice sheet is inevitable. That alone would lead to an estimated 7-metre rise in sea level. To put that into perspective, this House is 6 metres above sea level, so much of London will face regular flooding unless multi-billion-pound mitigation works are undertaken. Even then, it will not stop the flash floods.
When we discuss behavioural change, we are talking about more than switching off the lights when you leave an empty room, not leaving your TV on standby or even buying an electric car. As for all these technological advancements that are going to save our planet, they are not here yet. We cannot rely on something that could be five or 10 years in the future. We absolutely have to deal with what we have now.
We need wholesale change, which requires government to make the choices easy and more obvious for people. For example, the cost of travel by car has declined by 16% since 1997, but the cost of coaches and buses has gone up by a third. Why has the cost of domestic flights gone down by 16% but the cost of a train risen by a quarter? That is the Government sending signals in the wrong direction. When the Government finally put a charge on plastic bags, the result was a huge public switch. They have refused to put a deposit charge on plastic bottles or plastic-lined coffee cups, so the results have been completely different.
Plastic has been the one big growth area of the oil industry, and it nearly all goes in the waste-bin. The oil companies make money out of making it and the waste companies make money out of burning it. The consumers end up paying the long-term cost for something they did not ask for. We need the Government to make the alternatives cheaper and easier to use.
None of this can wait until 2050; we have lost that chance. The fundamental changes to our lifestyle have to be made now. Our biggest challenge is not stopping the Greenland ice sheet melting—that chance has gone—but stopping the massive glaciers of Antarctica slipping into the sea. If that happens, no walls will be high enough.
When our current Prime Minister was Mayor of London, in the first few weeks of his term I wrote him out three simple rules of sustainability, which I will list now in the hope that your Lordships can use them in future. I stood over him and made him read them, and kept them simple so that he could read them quickly. The first was that every single person has to do something. It is not enough to say that we will all do our personal bit; the Government have to do something as well. The second was that you have to make sure that there are no unintended consequences of something you do now; for example, that green airline fuel does not mean we cannot grow food in a certain area. The other thing is that there is no one answer. People always look for a big solution, but it is too big and too complex. Al Gore said there is no silver bullet, only silver buckshot.
Climate Change
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts(2 years, 8 months ago)
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Lord Callanan (Con)
The noble Lord invites me to indulge in a long debate about the validity or otherwise of the various reports and the IPCC report. Perhaps we could discuss it separately outside. However, the IPCC report was a major piece of work taking on board many of the assessments from world-leading scientists, and we would do well to take it seriously.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, since 2007, the IPCC has rapidly increased its assessment of potential sea level rises. When will the planning process reflect the fact that siting nuclear power stations in coastal areas is not a viable option?
Lord Callanan (Con)
The noble Baroness raises a valid point, because the effects of climate change include rising sea levels, but they are consolidated, considered and adapted throughout the lifetime of nuclear power stations. As the noble Baroness is of course aware, we have a robust regulatory framework. Planning permissions and environmental permit requirements mean that no site can be built or developed unless all these factors are taken fully into account.
Steel Sector
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts(2 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Callanan (Con)
For HS2, our 2021 steel procurement pipeline estimates that 1.95 million metric tonnes of steel are required in phases 1 and 2. So far, all reported structural steel used has been UK-produced.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
In view of the climate emergency that we are all facing, the Swedish Government have pushed forward on their aims to be fossil fuel-free by 2024, using the hydrogen technology that somebody has just mentioned. How many years behind are the British Government?
Lord Callanan (Con)
I know that the noble Baroness feels passionately about these matters, and we share her enthusiasm for decarbonising the industrial sectors as quickly as possible. She will know that decarbonising UK industry is a core part of the Government’s plan for a green industrial revolution, which I am sure she will support. The industrial decarbonisation strategy commits the Government to work with the steel council on the implications of the Climate Change Committee’s recommendation for UK-based steel makers to be carbon neutral by 2035.
Climate Change Act 2008 (Credit Limit) Order 2021
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts(2 years, 11 months ago)
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Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
That was a very interesting introduction from the Minister. I would like to explain the whole concept of urging economic growth when we live on a planet with finite resources, but I will have to leave that for another day. I would like to tackle quite a lot of what the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, said. The noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, said that making reductions is going to require more effort, which is absolutely true. He also asked whether we can trust other countries’ measurements—that is a perfectly true point—and talked about a stronger, more resilient future. I would argue that this Government do not have a clue how to get us to that future. It is going to take government resolve, the noble Lord said. Resolve is not something this Government are very good at. They are very good at making promises—and at breaking them.
The noble Lord, Lord Bourne, congratulated the Climate Change Committee on its budget and said that the Government had overachieved. They overachieved by cheating, essentially, by not including shipping or aviation. That is how they cut carbon emissions. Of course, they have now included those, so we might actually get some more accurate figures. The noble Lord also mentioned the G7 and said how wonderful the Government were. The most leaderly thing I saw at the G7 was President Macron telling the UK to honour its treaty promises. Let us hope that the Government will do so.
For me, this statutory instrument is nothing more than an accounting trick that takes us further away from tackling the climate emergency and runaway global heating. The Government should be ashamed of themselves for not listening to the Committee on Climate Change, which said that these credits should be set at zero, as the Minister said. However, the Government knew better and instead of listening to what the Minister called “independent, expert advice” from the committee, chose to do their own “robust analysis” of the situation and came up with a different answer. Which part of government did that robust analysis? I would really like to know, so that I can target my comments a little more closely.
So, instead of following the advice, which was to set these limits at zero, the Government have allowed for an additional 55 million tonnes of CO2 to be spewed into the UK atmosphere and then bought back from other countries. Essentially, the Government are like a fire brigade that says, “We’re going to let these 55 houses burn to the ground, but it’s okay because we’ve paid for 55 houses in other countries to be saved—and it’s cheaper anyway”. That is the most appalling way to run a country and an even worse way of trying to deal with runaway climate change, which is what we are facing. It is absurd to try to trade these things when we should all be racing towards net zero across the world.
The Government talk about showing global leadership, but then they create loopholes to avoid doing much of anything. I accept that they have made moves in the right direction, including adding shipping and aviation when counting CO2 emissions, but how are other countries going to look up to this Government on anything to do with climate change when they will not listen to their own Climate Change Committee, which gives them independent expert advice? Quite honestly, the Government are cheating the system, and I think it is appalling. Each time I get a glimmer of hope that this Government understand the real emergency we are facing and the damage it could do to all of us, the rest of the planet and every economy worldwide, my hopes are dashed by statutory instruments such as this.
Ecodesign for Energy-Related Products and Energy Information Regulations 2021
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts(2 years, 11 months ago)
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Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, it is impossible for me as a Green to disagree with anything in the opening statement, because these are things that we have been saying for 30 or 40 years—so I am glad that the Government have finally caught up with all these concepts, such as lower power usage, longer life for all sorts of goods, repairing them, saving money for customers on their bills and having less waste to landfill. Those are all things that we have been arguing for for decades. However, in the statutory instrument, all I could really see is that it changes the flag on a label from an EU flag to a union flag. Please tell me if I am wrong; it is a very thick document, so presumably something else is in it, but that seemed to me the only pertinent point.
The rest of the instrument is all about ensuring that EU law continues to operate effectively in the UK. For me, it is another sad reflection of this Government’s implementation of Brexit, because they made lots of promises about how we would be free from the shackles of the EU and how it would allow us to have the best environmental protections in the whole world—world-leading environmental protections, even. But the reality is that we are actually keeping 99% of EU laws, or weakening them, and then just sticking a union jack label on. Perhaps the Minister can point me to where I have gone wrong on this.
After reading this, I wonder what happened to creativity, ambition and even, as the Minister said, innovation. I know that the Government were carrying out a consultation on higher energy standards, and I am curious about that because, although I had only a quick search, I could not see the results. I do not know whether it is still ongoing, but it will be interesting if that says anything about improving on EU levels.
Of course, as any fool doth know, the cleanest, greenest and cheapest energy that you can have is the energy that you do not actually use. Our appliances and devices still use far more than they need to. The EU’s headline energy efficiency target for appliances is for at least 32.5% by 2030. Are we going to improve on that or are we going to be left behind? The consultation to which I referred talked about the possibility of appliances being part of a smart grid—so, for example, a freezer could store the energy and might store electricity in the form of extra cold to be used when there was a bit more demand or energy is scarcer. That is an important advance in an entire rethinking of the energy system, relying on renewables and storage.
There is also talk of displaying lifetime energy costs at the point of purchase for a product, plus additional information on the cost of running it and, importantly, how easily it can be repaired, reused and recycled—namely, how durable it is. I have quite a lot of questions, but my main one is: what has happened to that consultation on higher energy standards, and has it encouraged the Government to raise their own standards?