Climate Change

Debate between Baroness Morris of Bolton and Lord Henley

Thursday 24th January 2019 Lords Chamber

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

My Lords, the debate is due to end at 5.55 pm, so I hope the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, will understand if I eat into any time that he was hoping to use to wind up at the end of this debate. I take this opportunity to join all other speakers in congratulating him on introducing this debate and, as my noble friend Lord Bethell put it, on doing so in such an optimistic and positive manner. It is important to be optimistic on these matters, as most speakers have been. The noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, said that I had accused him of being a Jeremiah—I have possibly accused all Liberals of that on this subject in the past, and I will probably do so again. It is my nature to be an optimist, and I am an optimist in this field. Dare I use the title of my noble friend Lord Ridley’s book and say that I am a Rational Optimist on these matters? We have a good story to tell; I say that as a Minister in this Government, but it is a good story for the United Kingdom as a whole. We can refer back to the 2008 Act, which went through with the agreement of all parties. We can refer back to the work of the coalition Government. All three parties and the entire country have played a role.

I again offer my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, on the expertise that he attracted to the debate. We are very fortunate when one considers that we have such people as the noble Lord, Lord Rees; the noble Baroness, Lady Brown, vice-chairman of the CCC and chairman of its adaptation committee; and the noble Lord, Lord Chesterton, a former head of the Met Office. I think it is almost 25 years since I visited the Met Office as a Minister in another department; we all grow old. There has been expertise from all sides, and to that I add my noble friend Lord Selbourne, given all the work that his various committees have done over the years. That is not to downgrade the expertise and experience of all the others who have spoken in the debate. I was very grateful for the brief intervention from the noble Viscount, Lord Simon, on volcanoes. I shall not respond to that now, but if I get an inquiry in due course, I shall write to him—but it might be beyond me or even those who advise me.

As always, I begin by repeating the assurances that the Government have always given about where we are on the threats posed by climate change. I stress again the commitment that all Governments have made over many years to deal with it, and to demonstrate global leadership in doing so. We are already seeing major impacts of climate change both globally and here in the UK. Many noble Lords have spoken of the various changes we have seen. I add to that that we have had the 10 warmest years on record since 1990; eight of those have been since 2002. The hottest days of the year are getting hotter; minimum temperatures are getting milder.

I heard it put in much the best and simplest terms by an old land manager in my part of the world, Cumbria, when he retired. He said, “Every year has been the somethingest”. It is not necessarily all going in one direction, but as I think we all want to point out, the weather becomes more unreliable, the climate becomes more unreliable and we are seeing more extreme events. I put it in these terms: every year has been the somethingest, and the trend is clear.

Much reference has been made to last October’s intergovernmental panel on climate change and its special report warning of global warming of 1.5 degrees. It is the most comprehensive assessment we have of the evidence for that rise in global temperatures and its impact. Its most pressing message is that the world must act with urgency, because the evidence suggests that we are currently on track for a 3-degree rise in global temperatures, and we cannot say how devastating that could be. Large-scale irreversible effects such as melting ice sheets would continue to have an impact not just for a short period but for centuries to come. Biodiversity and ecosystems could be affected. The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, rightly referred to the loss of coral reefs. According to my figures, some 90% of coral reefs could be at risk. Poor and disadvantaged populations would be disproportionately affected, particularly those on small and low-lying islands. Our food and water supplies and infrastructure would be threatened.

The report states that with concerted effort and urgent action, we can limit warming to 1.5 degrees, but even that will obviously have a significant effect for which we need to be prepared. However, the most serious impacts caused by rises in temperature would be avoided.

That raises two questions: first, how do we protect the UK and other countries from those inevitable rises; secondly, how do we limit temperature increases to avoid the projected 3-degree rise? The answer is adaptation and mitigation, and I will address both in turn. On adaptation, some climate impacts are unavoidable, so we are integrating climate risk into our long-term planning. We recently published our second national adaptation programme. I apologise in advance to the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, because I will refer to a number of programmes we have published; indeed, he said that the road to hell would be paved with them. However, if we were not making plans of this sort, I believe I would hear even more from the noble Lord. It is right that we make plans.

As a result of that programme, we will invest £2.6 billion between 2015 and 2021 to reduce flood and coastal erosion risk. We review multiagency flood plans on an annual basis; coming from Cumbria, I take that particularly seriously. We have had two pretty bad occasions of flooding there in this century alone: in Carlisle, where I live, and in west Cumberland, in Cockermouth. I remember going to Cockermouth as the Adaptation Minister and seeing the work being done there. The noble Baroness, Lady Brown, is right to point to the small things one can do when rebuilding and developing houses, including moving power points higher so that when the floods come in next time, with a bit of luck, the electrics will be beyond the water. So things are happening.

Since 2003, an annual heatwave plan has been published by the Department of Health; I think it was the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, who talked about problems there. We are also helping developing countries to deal with the impacts of climate change: building their capacity to take action and catalysing large-scale public and private finance initiatives. Our climate finance has already helped 47 million people to cope with the effects of climate change, supported 17 million people to access clean energy and reduced or avoided more than 10 million tonnes of CO₂. So we are doing a lot on adaptation, and I assure the noble Baroness, Lady Brown, that we will continue to do so.

On mitigation, how can we do our bit? One small island can only do so much, so the rest of the world must do more to limit temperature rises. We can limit our emissions, develop technologies and drive international action; indeed, we are doing all three. In 2008, the UK led the world by passing the Climate Change Act. As the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, said. we can be collectively proud of that. The Act requires us to reduce emissions by 80% by 2050, compared with 1990 levels. The Act created the world’s first legally binding targets and provided a blueprint for climate action internationally.

Since then, we have shown that we are serious about decarbonising our economy. We are showing the world that you do not have to choose between growth and climate action. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, for stressing the figures: we have reduced emissions by more than 40%, compared with 1990 levels. He gave the figure of 43%, which I think is correct. At the same time, the economy grew by some two-thirds. We outperformed our first carbon budget and are on track to meet the second and the third. However, we recognise that we need to go further, and therefore I hope that in due course we will show that we can move towards the very demanding fourth and fifth budgets.

We have published the Clean Growth Strategy, which again sets out our robust plans to tackle the challenging decarbonisation still to come. It sets out policies until the end of 2030. Again, I have to say to the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, that I do not think that that is a question of chopping and changing. It focuses on areas where decarbonisation has clear joint benefits such as cleaner air from low-emission vehicles and so on. We have set ourselves ambitious targets to meet the challenges ahead. For example, we want to improve business efficiency by 20% by 2030 and improve the energy efficiency of existing and new buildings by then. We want to end the sale of all conventional petrol and diesel cars and vans by 2040 and to develop one of the best electrical charging networks in the world. Noble Lords will know that further research is going on in universities up and down the country, much of which the Government are supporting. We are also looking at hydrogen and other areas.

Agriculture is a concern of my noble friend. There too we are getting on and making progress, but I should say to him that we also welcome the CCC’s report on land use, which makes an important contribution to the evidence base. We will consider it very carefully and we look forward to the CCC’s follow-up feasibility report next year.

Our commitment, investment and strategy are helping us to become a world leader in low-carbon business. The world is turning towards clean energy and we will support UK companies to take full advantage of this opportunity. Through the support of Governments of all persuasions—Labour, the coalition and the current Government—we have already seen a reduction in the cost of renewables, allowing us to increase their use dramatically. In 2017, some 50% of our electricity was generated by clean sources, while last year we achieved a record 76 hours of continuous coal-free electricity generation. By 2025 we will have phased out coal from our energy mix altogether.

We will continue to support and improve the route to market for all renewable technologies. I will give just one example, which is that of offshore wind. We are making some £557 million available for the further contracts for difference. More is happening with offshore wind generation. I recently visited what is now the largest wind farm in the world, off the coast of Cumbria. We are making enormous progress and seeing the costs coming down—we referred to this only last week in our short debate on the subject of nuclear generation. Nuclear becomes harder and harder as the cost of renewables comes down and as we see advances in the technology for battery storage and other forms of generating energy.

I am coming rapidly to the end of my time and have only two minutes left. I am afraid that I am going to have to say to my noble friend Lord Caithness that on this occasion I will not be addressing his concerns about the shifting of magnetic north. It is probably important and I can assure him that there is some research into its possible contribution to changes in climate variability. If I can find out more, I will let him know and write to him.

There are other questions I would love to have addressed but, as I said, I wanted to give that optimist’s picture. We are at the forefront of efforts to tackle climate change domestically and abroad. But, having been optimistic, I do not want noble Lords to accuse me or the Government of being complacent. We recognise that the delivery of our future carbon budgets will require concerted action across the economy. We want to build on the success achieved by all Governments to date to deliver cost-effective emissions reductions in our homes, businesses and transport. This was part of the general theme expressed by all noble Lords and is something that the Government—but also academia, business and civil society—have to do.

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Morris of Bolton) (Con)]

My Lords, I apologise but the time allotted for this debate has now elapsed and therefore I must put the Question.