Climate Change

Lord Birt Excerpts

Thursday 6th February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Birt (CB)]

My Lords, the UK has already made much progress on the path to net zero, and we should not diminish that. CO₂ emissions per capita are now well below comparable countries, as is our energy use; greenhouse gas emissions are down by over 40% in 20 years; half of our electricity is now produced, carbon-free, from renewables and nuclear; and coal burn will soon come to an end. However, 75% of our energy at point of use is still petroleum or gas-fuelled. Half of all our energy is consumed by households and is currently 85% carbon-generated. Transport consumes the most energy of all and is 98% carbon-fuelled.

The route ahead is mighty challenging, but we should be bold and not incremental or hair-shirt in forging a way forward. We can be optimistic, not pessimistic. However, only 1% of cars are currently electric or hybrid, as the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, reminded us. Can the Minister tell us how we will ensure readily available, easily accessible, rapid charge points for electric vehicles in our cities, towns and countryside? Only one-third of our rail network is currently electric: what is the plan for a zero-carbon railway? How will we move to electric or hydrogen heating in our homes, which are currently 90% powered by oil or gas?

These transformations are likely to need three to four times the level of electricity that we produce now but, as we all know, renewables are intermittent and cannot reliably produce energy exactly when it is needed. Currently, we store only a miserly 6% of peak electricity demand. Will we massively increase our storage capacity? Will we build more nuclear power stations to ensure a carbon-free baseload? We and other countries are stumbling badly in our nuclear plans. Will we adapt our approach to sharing risk with contractors on these advanced technology projects?

Newer technologies may—or may not—overtake us and offer better solutions. We should remember that technology has improved enormously in respect of renewables in the last 20 years; they are very much more efficient than they were in the past. However, any plan that we forge is likely to need regular revision. As the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, reminded us, nuclear fusion may ride to the rescue. Battery technology, which is currently sluggish, may experience a breakthrough, or we may learn to extract carbon cost-effectively from the air.

The noble Lord, Lord Reid, a moment ago, amusingly raised the issue of what the impact will be on our economy, which is a hugely important question. Philip Hammond talked of a bill of £1 trillion spread over 30 years. Who will pay—the consumer or the taxpayer? What will be the impact—this is a massive issue—on other public spending? How will we protect the poor? Will net-zero investment stimulate growth or stifle it? Britain is a small country, responsible for only a tiny fraction of global emissions. How will we ensure that we march in step with the whole world, and especially the big emitters? I thought that the contribution on that matter of the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, was very effective.

We will not carry people with us through this transformation if we move well ahead of the pack; that was the warning of the noble Earl, Lord Caithness. How can we focus public debate on what most matters? One day, air travel may be electric, or powered by sustainable fuels, but it is the biggest technical challenge of all. International air travel, however, is currently responsible for only around 1% of emissions. It cannot be our first priority and crowd out far bigger and more easily achievable carbon-reducing solutions.

We cannot expect the Minister to answer all these questions today, but I hope that he will tell us how the Government plan to get a plan, and when we shall see it.

Thomas Cook

Lord Birt Excerpts

Tuesday 5th November 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Birt (CB)]

My Lords, the collapse of Thomas Cook has had tragic ramifications for many parties, none more so than the group that the Minister identified in his Statement. Can he tell us what value the official receiver has placed on the category of obligation that he has outlined in respect of personal injury? He talks of an uncapped fund: how are the Government going to establish the quantum of that cap?

International Climate Action

Lord Birt Excerpts

Thursday 26th September 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Duncan of Springbank]

I am probably going to frighten my officials when I say that I suspect the answer is no. I think we need to be investing significantly in the technologies that are available. We also need to seriously consider how we move those technologies, given the way in which they are already used within the UK and the EU, to countries where they can do the maximum good. Carbon capture utilisation and storage offers us opportunities, if we use these methodologies wisely and carefully, in removing carbon. We have to remember that there are chemical processes—for example, the production of ammonia—where we simply cannot do without carbon dioxide because it is part of the natural chemical equation. We need to find ways of removing the carbon as best we can through those technologies.

Storage must be at the heart of where we go now. The progress that we make on wind will simply be blown away unless we can capture it and hold it in some form of storage. The pump hydro stations that exist in Scotland and Wales are a very useful example of that, and Norway has a significant number of those, but we need to think of other technologies as well, such as battery technologies, to retain that electricity.

We need to be global leaders in this area. In fact, the EU has to be a global leader in this area too, and we should be collaborating strongly through the Horizon programmes to ensure that we remain committed to technologies and ensure that they are available, not just here in Europe but wherever they can do good.

[Lord Birt (CB)]

I applaud the Minister’s high productivity today—he must have been up all night—as well as his manner. Would that there were more like him.

I strongly approve, as everyone who has spoken plainly does, of the Government embracing the net zero target. However, as the Minister has made clear in his answers already, finding the pathway to achieving that target is an enormous task. As he says, on the other side of Brexit it will be arguably the single biggest challenge that this country has to face. For instance, the previous Chancellor identified the scale of GDP that will have to be devoted to ensuring that our transport system, the heating of our homes and buildings, and our electricity generation is de-carbonised. It is an enormous challenge. The Government have declared their target. When are they going to set out the framework for achieving it—the multiple pathways which the Minister has referred to—and meeting that ultimate challenge?

[Lord Duncan of Springbank]

The noble Lord is absolutely right: setting a 2050 net zero target is important as a point on the horizon to be reached, but it is the pathways we will take to get there that will be the challenge. He is right again when he reminds us that the Chancellor gave an estimate of how much he thought this might cost this country alone, but it is sometimes more useful to take it down to the level of the individual household. To consider what it will mean, think of a household that has one car and a central heating system using gas, and think of having to move that forward. There are different technologies that we may be able to use to increase the efficiency of the electricity going into the home, but when we begin to talk about the changeover, particularly with vehicles, we are talking about significant individual household investments, and we cannot shy away from that.

One of the greatest dangers we face today is the number of times people conflate the words “electricity” and “energy”. On some days you will hear that we are approaching close to getting 100% of our electricity from renewable sources, but if you put the word “energy” into that, you are absolutely wrong, because our transport system and the way we heat our homes are primarily hydrocarbon based. We are not one small step away, and unless the general public appreciate that, they will wonder why we are not going faster.

The challenge we need to map out is the one that the noble Lord rightly pointed out. Our plan as we approach the glide path to COP26 in Glasgow must be to set out very clearly not only the routes we are seeking to explore, because some need exploration, but the targets and milestones by which we can measure our progress. We must also set out how we can look at that as a means to encourage others to follow in our slipstream. In truth, as I said, if we achieve this ourselves, we will have done little at a global level: we must have others come alongside. Once we have seen the framework, we should probably gather together once again to explore the details of how it might work in reality and to look at the costs, because it will not be without costs, and commitments required from individual households to change their behaviour.