Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Thursday 2nd May 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, it is with huge pleasure that I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, on bringing forward the debate today and the noble Lord, Lord Deben, on his report, because it is brilliant timing on both their parts. It has been a very happy time for me to listen to the debate; some of the speeches have been incredibly passionate and have saved my having to say some of these things—in fact, I have quite a few scribbles through my notes because others have said what I wanted to say and much more passionately.

It is notable that today we have had the news that the Indonesian Government have decided that they have to move their capital, Jakarta, because some parts of it are sinking at a rate of 10 inches a year. It is the first capital city to move for climate change reasons, which is perhaps an indicator of the way things are going.

For me, the Extinction Rebellion campaign has been a breath of fresh air. It has drawn the climate and ecological emergency to the forefront of political debate. It has moved the debate from whether all this is happening to when we can start to deal with it and thereby preserve humanity and some of our valuable ways of life. That it has been able to cut through all the Brexit noise and force politicians such as us to confront the issues is proof that its tactics are legitimate and highly effective. It joins the ranks of peaceful earth protectors across the world who risk so much in the pursuit of a safe climate and a secure future.

Extinction Rebellion has three simple, core demands. The first is to tell the truth, so that Parliament, having declared a climate and ecological emergency, must work with other institutions and other groups to communicate the need for change. The second is to act now. The Government must act now to halt biodiversity loss and reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2025. The climate change committee’s report has made some valuable headway, but it was written before Extinction Rebellion’s campaign had really got under way. Sixty per cent of people agree with Extinction Rebellion’s aims, which means that the political climate outside these Houses has moved on and that we can be more ambitious. I am afraid that the net-zero aim of 2050 is not only unambitious but shockingly weak and will not take us to the place of safety that we all need. It is a game-changer; it is wonderful that it has happened, but it is not enough. The third demand by Extinction Rebellion is to go beyond politics. The Government must create and be led by the decisions of citizens’ assemblies on climate and ecological issues.

Let me go into those issues a little more deeply. Telling the truth means admitting that the Government’s existing climate legislation is too weak and too slow. It requires the Government to admit that they are planning to miss their legally binding climate budgets and are trying to find ways to water them down already. It means writing the Paris Agreement into UK law and sticking to the targets. It means having an honest conversation with the electorate about what this means and the scale of change that is needed to set us on the right course.

Telling the truth also means using the statistics and data honestly. It means no longer saying that we have outperformed by reducing greenhouse gas emissions while growing the economy, when we know that this has happened partly because we are importing more from other countries and pretending that their emissions do not count. We cannot fiddle the figures any more; the Government cannot cheat any more on this. Luckily, the climate change committee has advised including shipping and aviation emissions in government figures, which I hope will remove the option of Heathrow expansion, but we should also include our imports. There is always a lot of whataboutery in respect of China and other countries, which are perhaps not doing their bit. We have to accept that we are encouraging their emissions by our imports. We should take responsibility for those import emissions; at the moment, we do not.

Telling the truth means being honest with one another and with ourselves that this is a terrifying state of affairs. Anyone who is not afraid for the future of our planet is either uninformed or living in wilful ignorance. Acting now means taking at least the same amount of political will, Civil Service resource and legislative time that has been spent on Brexit and applying that to the climate and ecological emergency. It means a two-year parliamentary Session with a Queen’s Speech focused entirely on climate and ecology, cancelled recesses and endless statutory instruments. It means strong and far-ranging manifesto commitments from all the political parties which are then implemented obsessively for years to come.

We are acting for the future of our planet, for the future of humanity and for the future of our children and grandchildren. We are acting for the needs of nearly 8 billion humans on earth, along with millions of other species with which we share our home.

Acting now also means serious enforcement and legislation. It means massive state intervention in huge market failures, radical taxation and subsidies, nationalisation of certain industries and the creation of a million climate jobs. It means zero-carbon homes, enormous green infrastructure projects and forging happier, healthier lives with a much smaller footprint on the earth. It also means banning fracking and writing off huge fossil fuel reserves—I advise any Peers who have fossil fuel investments to get rid of them now.

I have had my six minutes; I am going to end. Greta Thunberg said that we should be panicking. Personally, I have been panicking for years. A friend of mine once said that my worst character flaw was saying, “I told you so”. I want to say to the House today, “I told you so”. We have to get on and actually make a difference.

Climate

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd April 2019 Grand Committee

Asked by

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they intend to declare a climate emergency.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I do not intend to rehearse the threats, challenges and opportunities presented by climate change, as these have been well covered in previous debates, but we know that climate change is real, it is here, it is now and we have to confront it. It cannot be dealt with tomorrow or the day after; it must be done today, every day of the year, and every year of every decade. It is the number one issue—not Brexit, not economic growth, not any of the other issues that we might feel passionate about.

My question today is whether the Government intend to treat the climate crisis with the urgency that it demands by declaring a climate emergency. We know from the world’s scientific community that fewer than 12 years are left to prevent 1.5 degrees of warming, which will cause huge problems for humanity—it is a massive threat. The Government’s policies and plans do not come close to meeting this deadline. An urgent and rapid global response is necessary, as has been recognised by 44 local authorities in the UK which have declared a climate emergency—that is since Carla Denyer’s motion in Bristol, with all those other councils following suit. Some 17,000 people have signed a petition on this issue, and thousands of young people across the country have been taking part in climate protests and school strikes to protect their future. And, of course, the campaign, Extinction Rebellion, and many other planet protectors are putting their bodies on the line to stop the disaster.

If we are to tackle the climate emergency, we must first call it a climate emergency—we have to acknowledge it. That would send out an essential signal to business, to industry and to the financial markets that our policies will be more ambitious and more stringent with time. Sending signals to the financial markets is crucial; fossil fuel companies and their reserves are heavily overvalued at the moment. There is a strong likelihood that we will see a fossil fuel crisis similar to the 2008 credit crisis once financial investors finally realise just how much of those fossil fuels have to stay in the ground.

That is why many people are calling for pension regulators to assess exposure to high carbon risk, for the Bank of England to factor in the carbon exposure of banks in its reserve requirements and for the London Stock Exchange to require all companies to make disclosure on fossil fuel risk. Pension funds, banks and other institutional investors have to be weaned off fossil fuels as a matter of urgency or their investments could go up in smoke.

There is no economic growth without the complex web of biodiversity that supports life on planet Earth. Climate breakdown will impact adversely on our ability to supply ourselves with water, food and safe shelter. It goes to the very heart of humanity’s safety.

The cumulative effect of CO₂ means that it is not just a matter of hitting a target by 2030 or 2050. If we fail to act today, we have to do more tomorrow. If we fail to reduce CO₂ now, the target for reductions in 2030 has to reduce even further to take into account our failures. Every failure of today’s generation imposes a new cost on the next generation. Today’s excesses are a cost that they have to pay.

It is a worldwide problem and we in the UK have to hit the brakes hard because of our historical legacy of the industrial revolution and the vast amount of CO₂ that we import from other countries—we take that for granted and tend to ignore it. Everything has a cost somewhere to somebody. It does not matter whether it is toys for Christmas, circuit boards for our computers, or exotic fruits—everything we import has a CO₂ burden.

No doubt the Minister will direct us to the Government’s Clean Growth Strategy as proof of how seriously they are taking climate change, but it is a very poor effort and extremely overoptimistic about the potential for change. Optimism is not enough. Optimism is often based in ignorance. We have only to compare the Government’s strategy to the scale of the government response to the investment in the project of delivering Brexit. The Clean Growth Strategy justifies inaction by looking at “a long term trajectory”, exploring “voluntary” standards and having aspirations,

“where practical, cost-effective and affordable”.

That is all absolute rubbish.

Meanwhile, Brexit is seeing billions of pounds ploughed into contingency planning, two-thirds of civil servants in some government departments are being told to drop everything to focus on this one issue, soldiers are ready to take over essential services, and several Bills have been rushed through Parliament alongside some 800 statutory instruments—all to fulfil a self-imposed deadline of two years, which has now been extended by a mere two weeks. If the Government can pull out all the stops to deliver on the so-called will of the people, I absolutely do not see why they cannot do the same for a climate emergency, which is the largest threat facing humanity.

Declaring the climate emergency is just the first step to treating the situation with the urgency it needs. The real policies come next. We need a green new deal which will create hundreds of thousands of jobs and a low-carbon economy, to enhance the Committee on Climate Change and to carbon-proof all new laws and policies—and we need billions of pounds invested by the Government to do this. The Treasury must not be afraid to increase the public debt substantially to head off this emergency.

Local authorities that have declared climate emergencies should be given a fund of money to go carbon-neutral by 2030. They deserve recognition by the Government for doing the right thing. The Government should set high standards that are enforceable and enforced, such as all new homes being carbon-neutral, and all existing homes being retrofitted to modern standards.

We have the Queen’s Speech coming up in May and the comprehensive spending review this summer. Now is the time for the Government to announce several new Bills alongside billions of pounds of funding to cope with the climate emergency. I see people taking a lot of notes, which I am very happy about; I hope it translates into action.

I assure your Lordships that Brexit planning is a drop in the ocean compared to the effort that we must put in to tackling the climate emergency; our great-grandchildren probably will not care whether or not we left the EU, but their lives will be permanently altered by whether or not we handled the climate emergency.

My conclusion is simple: when we fail to act today, we have to work twice as hard tomorrow. The Government must declare a climate emergency, taking climate change seriously in a way they simply have not envisaged so far. I therefore urge the Government to act now—today.

Buildings: Energy Performance

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Tuesday 11th December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, my understanding is that we have met our first carbon budget. We are on track to meet our second and third. I will take advice on where we are on the fourth, and write to the noble Lord.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, obviously I care about all the environmental aspects of these issues, but measures such as home insulation also create huge amounts of business for small and medium businesses, and thousands of skilled jobs. Why are they not at the heart of the Government’s industrial strategy?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, we are all fully aware that the noble Baroness cares very strongly about the environmental aspects and I assure her that they are at the heart of our industrial strategy. We want to see people take the business opportunities of selling insulation and individuals then taking the opportunity to insulate their home.

Oil and Gas: UK Continental Shelf

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Monday 18th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

The noble Lord is correct: we should do that. As his noble friend said, we should also continue with explorations. There is much that we can do, that the Government are doing and that the industry is doing.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, is the Minister aware of the carbon bubble—the possibility that the bottom could fall out of the market in oil and gas and general fossil fuel investment? Will the Government therefore give some advice on these risks to anyone who would like to look further at oil and gas? I raised this with the Bank of England a few years ago and it has since said some quite enlightened things.

[Lord Henley]

The noble Baroness makes a point but it is important that we continue to look at all available resources. The noble Baroness knows we are moving towards a low-carbon economy but we also want a balanced energy mix. It is important that we make use in the medium—and possibly long—term of the fossil fuels that we have.

Ffos-y-Fran Opencast Coal Mine

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Tuesday 5th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My noble friend is absolutely correct.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, up to 60,000 people die in this country every year from air pollution. I fail to see how the British Government do not have a responsibility for lowering air pollution in every part of the union.

Energy: Home Battery Storage

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Monday 4th December 2017 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the potential for home battery storage to change the dynamics of energy supply and demand.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Lord Henley) (Con)]

My Lords, the Government and Ofgem published a smart systems and flexibility plan in July 2017, which outlines a series of actions to support the transition to a smart energy system. They include an assessment of changes in our energy system and measures to address the barriers to storage, whether in the form of home batteries or the range of grid storage technologies.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I thank the Minister for his reply. I am sure that the Government have thought this through—or not—but as nuclear subsidies increase and the cost of national grid electricity rises, more people will move to solar and domestic storage of energy. That means that people still using the national grid will be the poorest in society because they cannot afford all these extra measures. Have the Government thought through how the poor will be relieved of paying for very expensive electricity?

[Lord Henley]

Obviously there will be changes as more people make use of storage. That will have an effect on the grid because if some people increase their use of storage, they may even be able to go off-grid in future. The noble Baroness is right to draw the House’s attention to that issue. That is a matter for Ofgem; it can certainly look at that to make sure that it can create a level playing field for all consumers.

Energy: Storage

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Wednesday 1st February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

My Lords, if there is any issue about availability of supplies from France, it probably relates more to the fact that a number of France’s nuclear plants are nearing the end of their lives than to anything that comes out of Brexit. In fact, as the noble Lord may know, we are investing in more interconnector capacity, which would increase the capacity from 2,200 megawatts to more than 7,000 megawatts. Again, that should reduce the cost of electricity to our consumers.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I do not hear the Government talking much about microgeneration, which provides a real opportunity to get local people to invest. Is that something that the Minister’s department is looking at?

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

My Lords, again, the development of battery technology and electric vehicles means that every consumer in the country could become a small generator in due course and be able not only to take electricity from the grid during downtimes but also to feed back energy from their electric car or their own battery in their own home during peak times. We are looking at, I think, a revolution in the way that we manage electricity in this country.

Green Investment Bank

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Thursday 12th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

My Lords, the Green Investment Bank has been a huge success—I do not think anyone doubts that. From a start-up four or five years ago, it has developed into probably the finest financial institution in this space. The Government have two objectives: first, to get value for money—certainly not to sell the assets for less than they are worth; and secondly, to free up the Green Investment Bank so that it can use its expertise to back more sustainable projects in the future.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I give credit to the coalition Government for setting up the Green Investment Bank. It was a very good move and I deeply regret the privatisation because I feel that we will, perhaps, lose some momentum. However, in a debate yesterday in the other place the right honourable Member for West Dorset said that the privatisation of the Green Investment Bank would be judged on its increasing the spend over the last full year, which I think was £700 million. Is there any commitment within the bidders’ bids—I do not think this is confidential—to increase investment so that the good work can continue?

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

My Lords, I think the Green Investment Bank has spent just over £2.5 billion so far and has brought in about £8 billion of private investment to complement that, so it has committed a total investment of about £10 billion. Clearly anyone who buys the Green Investment Bank will want to see that investment grow. That will be very much part of the negotiated discussions that we are having with interested parties.

Solar Panels: Business Rate Exemption

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Thursday 27th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

The noble Baroness is right that there is in this area a curiosity, as I think I would describe it, which is that private schools and academies, being charities, as she said, get an 80% reduction, which is good. We have a system where the impact depends on the ownership, as she will know, of the affected solar project, so we have a situation in which there is a fall on new projects where the electricity generated is sold and an increase where the electricity is used directly by the owner—she mentioned the example of schools. It is not possible to estimate the impact of those changes because it depends on ownership but, as I said in my reply, we are considering the impact and any proposed changes will be made in due course.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, last year I visited a school in Croydon, which has had to cancel an expansion of its solar installation because of the Government’s cuts to the feed-in tariff. I invite the Minister, when she is sure about the impact of this particular measure, to go with me to that school in Croydon and explain why its solar installation is now going to be taxed and how much it will be taxed by.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

As I have said, we are looking at the rate issue. There is also an issue relating to VAT, where HMRC issued a consultation—at the moment, domestic VAT continues to be 5%. The feed-in tariff deployment actually continues. Obviously, the subsidies of solar have come down because the costs have come down to such an extent. Solar has been a big success in this country and it is obviously right that the subsidy levels reflect that innovation and productivity.

Climate Change: Fracking

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Tuesday 6th September 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

The noble Baroness is right to draw attention to methane. That is, of course, one of the key focuses of the Environment Agency, which has control over the permitting process and environmental emissions.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, in fact there is mounting evidence that the methane leaks associated with fracking are far dirtier than those associated with energy derived from coal. Therefore, I do not see how it is possible for us to have clean energy and fulfil all our commitments if we carry on fracking. Is it not time that we followed the devolved countries of Scotland and Wales and abandoned fracking in England?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

I think the key thing is to have a proper regulatory system of controls. We have learned from US experience in setting up our system. We are also focused on all the Kyoto basket of gases, which includes methane. I assure the noble Baroness that that is an important part of our thinking. But I return to my first point, which is that we need a mix of energy in the transition to 2050.