Climate Change

Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park Excerpts

Monday 24th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Chris Skidmore]

We have obviously taken advice on the 2050 target from the independent Committee on Climate Change, which has suggested that at the moment 2050 is the earliest possible date for reaching net zero. Obviously, we are the first G7 country to make that commitment to 2050. Other economies, such as Norway, have committed to 2038. As part of the Government’s local industrial strategy, the Greater Manchester area committed, just last week, to a net zero target by 2038. I welcome the NFU’s commitment, but what we are saying as a Government is that all agencies across society will need to take action.

We welcome the NFU’s leadership on agricultural emissions and looking at how the agricultural sector can be decarbonised. However, when it comes to the framework of the Climate Change Act, as the right hon. Member for Doncaster North highlighted during the statement made by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, the review mechanism is built into the legislation to allow us the opportunity to review the target in five years. When it comes to the overall cost—and some hon. Members may wish to reflect on the costs of going from 80% to 100%—the review mechanism is important. The Committee on Climate Change has recommended that the overall cost envelope of reaching net zero be the same as the 80% envelope, because since the original 80% target was set out, the costs of renewables and other technology have come down.

[Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a hugely important point. Earlier he talked about the need to balance the need to reduce emissions with concerns about jobs. Does he agree that we have already seen the creation of 400,000 low-carbon jobs in this country, and that by leading the transition to a clean economy—which will happen whether we like it or not—there will be even more opportunities for job creation in the future?

[Chris Skidmore]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that excellent point, and he is right. When we consider any impact on wider society of introducing this legislation over the next few decades, while we may see short-term costs from the transformation, we need to look at the investment opportunities that will be created by new green jobs, which are expected to rise from the 400,000 figure he mentions to 2 million by 2030, potentially creating an economy worth over £150 billion in the longer term. It is important that that investment is recognised, because we want the UK to lead the world in future technologies such as carbon capture and storage. The legislation today provides a catalytic moment for us to look at how we can achieve this target and to invest for the future. The Treasury review will lead into the spending review and we will wish to look at how we can continue to invest in clean growth as a technology.

Net Zero Carbon Emissions: UK’s Progress

Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park Excerpts

Thursday 28th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh), the Chair of the Select Committee, of which I am proud to be a member. I am delighted that we are having this debate today, and I pay tribute to the hon. Members for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) and for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), who secured it. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon) said, this is the most important issue. In an effort to chip away at my gigantic constituency majority in Richmond Park and North Kingston, one or two local opponents enjoy telling my constituents that I care more about the environment and climate change than I do about Brexit, and they are right—I do, for all the reasons we have just heard. So they can stick that on their leaflets.

This is already a year of records. Last year, we had record snowfall in March in this country. We had the joint hottest summer on record. Two days ago, we had the record temperature in any February ever. Clearly, we cannot attribute individual weather extremes or events to climate change, as that is just not scientific and not possible to do, but the trends do tell a story. The most recent Met Office report, from November last year, tells us that the UK is experiencing an increase in weather extremes: hottest days have become hotter; the number of warm spells has increased; the coldest days are not as cold; and there has been an increase in rainfall levels. None of that, individually, is catastrophic, but it is a sign.

Globally, the signs are even more alarming. The five warmest years in recorded history have been since 2010, with 2014 being the hottest year ever recorded—until 2015. It became the record year—until 2016. In 2016, at the time the warmest year on record, eight of the months were the warmest the individual month had ever seen in history. So the implications of all this, if the science is right, are truly alarming: ecosystems forced through such rapid changes that they are unlikely to be able to adapt; lands becoming harder and harder to farm; and refugees on a scale we have never had to deal with before as a species. We heard in an intervention from my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) about Bangladesh, which is probably the most extreme and alarming example. We should commit right here and now to trying to secure a debate on the issue—it is extraordinary that we have not debated it—but Bangladesh is just one among other examples. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that an average of 21.5 million people are already displaced each year because of weather-related sudden onset hazards. That figure will only grow if any of these predictions are correct.

Last year’s IPCC report painted the most alarming picture yet. The House will remember that the Paris agreement of 2015 commits the world to a target of limiting global warming to 2°C. The report looked into the difference between what we can expect if we achieve the 2°C target and what we can expect if instead we limit increases to 1.5°C. It tells us that the number of people exposed to water stress would be 50% lower if we kept to 1.5°C. It tells us that half a degree would mean hundreds of millions fewer people, particularly in the world’s poorest countries, being at risk of climate-related destitution. The half degree of extra warming would lead to a forecasted 10 cm additional pressure on our coastlines. That half degree is the difference between losing all our corals and managing to hold on to 10% of them.

[Clive Lewis (Norwich South) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Gentleman acknowledge that the IPCC report on a 1.5°C target said that we need to make the necessary reductions to our greenhouse emissions by 2030? Unfortunately, the Government are telling the Committee on Climate Change that they cannot look at that reduction until 2050. That seems to me to be a little bit late in the day.

[Zac Goldsmith]

I will address exactly that point shortly.

Let me conclude my remarks on the IPCC report. If one looks at the trends, one sees that currently we are not heading for that apocalyptic 2°C rise; we are heading towards something that looks more like 3°C, the consequences of which we cannot possibly estimate. In that light, the idea that children missing a few hours of geometry or physical education to ring the alarm bells and wake up our political system is somehow a wasted opportunity or the wrong thing to do just seems churlish. It seems absurd and mean-minded.

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

My hon. Friend is on the central issue, but of course he is referring to a global problem and it has only a global solution, because we are talking about 2.6 billion people in China and India for the first time in 250 years returning to the historic norm of their occupying half of global GDP, with massive consequences for energy consumption and other things. Does my hon. Friend agree that we therefore need to talk not just about our own activities and those of the west, but about the question of how we restructure the international order, which is probably the biggest challenge facing the western world and the eastern world at present?

[Zac Goldsmith]

I could not agree more with my right hon. Friend. My final remarks will relate partially to the point that he just made, and he is right. It would be madness for those countries that have not yet developed in the sense that we have to develop in such a way that required them to become addicted to the same system that is causing this problem. They have an opportunity to leapfrog into a much cleaner, leaner and more efficient future. The technology is there.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Newbury pointed out earlier, there are still doubters. Of course we can quibble with the predictions, because climate systems are complex. There is not a computer model on Earth that is capable of fully taking on board the complexity of the natural world and the realities of the positive and negative feedbacks that impact on climate. Nevertheless, we are faced with a pretty simple calculation: what happens if we ignore that overwhelming scientific consensus, listen instead to the sceptics, and are then wrong? The IPCC predictions have told us that we would be risking life on Earth as we know it. We would be risking civilisation.

What happens if instead we listen to that consensus, take action and are wrong? Well, by accident we would end up with a cleaner and eventually cheaper energy system. We would end up protecting more of the world’s forests and ecosystems. We would end up with an economic system that was more circular and less wasteful. It really is not a difficult calculation to make—and that is even more true given that almost everything we need to do to tackle climate change is something that we need to do irrespective of climate change.

The challenge is gigantic and no one doubts that—we are told that if we are to meet that 1.5°C total global emissions target, we need to reach net zero by 2050 at the latest—but we can do it. In fairness to the Government, it is worth highlighting that we are already making progress—not enough, but progress all the same. We have already heard about the world-leading Climate Change Act, on which I am not going to dwell, but since 2010 the UK has reduced emissions by 23%. We have reduced emissions faster than any other G7 nation. I am delighted to acknowledge that the Government have instructed the Committee on Climate Change to look into how we can go further and move to a net zero emissions target. It also needs to be said, though, that at the current rate of progress, despite our having met the early targets and being on course to meet the next one, we are not on course to meet the fourth and fifth carbon budgets, so we do have a long way to go.

Clearly, we will have to change much of what we do not just in terms of how we generate electricity, but in terms of how we use it, how we manage the land, and how we organise our transport, food and industry. There has long been a belief, a fear, that there must be a direct correlation between emissions and economic growth. That has been true. For much of the industrial revolution, there has been a direct link: emissions go up, growth goes up. However, it is not so clear now. Since 1990, we have cut emissions in this country by 42%, even while our economy has grown by two thirds. As we enter this gigantic economic transition, there will, of course, be losers—the polluters—but there will also be winners. Last year saw a record amount of power generated from renewable sources—more than 30% is now coming from renewables.

A much quicker transition to electric vehicles—something on which we really need to push—will mean more jobs and more investment. Supporting new, clean technologies means both jobs and investments. That transition will happen whether we like it or not. It is the old story of the whale oil. In 1850, every home in America was lit by whale oil. Nine years later, Edwin Drake struck oil, and we had the oil rush. Almost immediately, the whale oil sector simply evaporated. There is a cutting in a diary of the biggest whale oil trader at the time who said that he was astonished that he had run out of customers before he had run out of whales. That is what will happen. Old industries and old technologies will give way to new ones, and it is in our interests as a country to lead the charge.

Hon. Members have covered lots of areas on which we need to get going, but I want to focus on just one last point that has been neglected in almost all of the debates that we have had on climate change, and that is forests. Apart from transport, deforestation is the single largest source of emissions. It accounts for around 20%—a fifth—of all carbon emissions. Forests are one of the world’s largest carbon sinks, absorbing around 2.5 billion tonnes of carbon a year and storing many billions more, yet we are losing 18.7 million acres of forests every year, the equivalent of 27 football pitches every single minute. It is self-evident madness that that is happening—not just because of climate change. Forests provide us with clean air, water and soils. We do not fully understand their influence on world weather patterns, but we know that it is defining. They are home to 80% of terrestrial biodiversity. More than 1.5 billion people depend directly on forests for their livelihoods, many of whom are the world’s poorest people, so we need to protect them. That needs to be a priority.

The UK can be proud that we are the only nation in the G7, and indeed in the G20, to hit the UN’s target on overseas aid the year before last—we were the only country to do so. Only a tiny fraction of that aid—as little as 0.4%—goes towards nature, and we can do much more than that. The very existence of DFID is to tackle poverty, but the surest way to plunge people into desperate poverty is by removing the environments, the ecosystems and the free services that nature provides. Those are the things on which people depend. Of course, the world’s poorest people depend much more directly on nature than we do here in this House, but, ultimately, we all depend on the natural world.

[Sir Edward Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. He is right to say that this country needs to help developing countries. One of the best ways that we can do that is by using our expertise in organisations such as the Met Office. Kew Gardens in his constituency has some of the world’s greatest scientists. We should work with other countries to make sure that they can adapt and indeed mitigate climate change.

[Zac Goldsmith]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. I love the fact that he mentioned Kew Gardens and I thank him for doing so. I am trying to push through a private Member’s Bill, but it keeps being blocked by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope)—cue boos from people who happen to be watching this discussion. It would deliver about £40 million or £50 million extra to Kew Gardens without dipping into the public purse, and it would enable the scientists to do exactly the work that he has just mentioned, much of which focuses on helping developing countries, poorer countries, adapt to the reality and the risks of climate change. Those scientists do extraordinary work, and I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for allowing me to put that on the record.

In addition to being at the forefront of the new net zero revolution, which is what it is, let us also be world leaders in restoring ecosystems on a scale that finally matches the problem.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Nuclear Update

Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park Excerpts

Thursday 17th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

The Prime Minister has repeatedly discussed nuclear investment with the Prime Minister of Japan, as have I with my opposite number there. In fact, in November, I flew to Tokyo to discuss the negotiations going on here, given the difficulties that the investor was having, and I met my opposite number at the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. This has been a substantial, and cordial, Government-to-Government relationship, and the hon. Gentleman has my assurance that we will continue that. I mentioned in my statement the work of our embassy in Tokyo, which has been an excellent and expert source of advice. That will continue to be available.

When it comes to investment in renewables, the hon. Gentleman will know that Wales is a substantial and proud leader in renewable energy. I think Gwynt y Môr is the second largest wind farm already deployed in Europe. I mentioned in my statement the rising availability of alternative technologies. To put this in context, in 2017 we procured more than 3 GW of offshore wind in a single contract for difference auction at £57.50 per MWh. That is more in a single auction than this plant was going to provide. As I have said, the challenge is the competition coming from other technologies, and Wales is a beneficiary of some aspects of that.

[Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)]

In his statement, my right hon. Friend said that the economics of the energy market had changed significantly in recent years, meaning that renewable energy could now be not only cheap but readily available. Does he share my concern that consumers will not see all the benefits of the reduced prices, given that we are bound into these exceedingly long-term and hugely expensive contracts? An example is Hinkley, whose strike price means that it will probably be the most expensive form of energy in the history of energy generation. Can he give me an assurance or commitment that nuclear power will not result in consumer bills skyrocketing in the years to come?

[Greg Clark]

That is demonstrated in my statement today. We were talking about a strike price substantially less than that of Hinkley, and I said when I made my statement to the House on Hinkley that we would do that. I say gently to my hon. Friend, who is a lifelong environmentalist, that exactly the same arguments were advanced against the initial contracts for offshore wind—namely, that they would be burdensome and that we should not enter into them. We have now seen substantial capacity becoming available at prices that will shortly be free of subsidy entirely. That is an excellent development for consumers, for the reasons that he has given, but it is also the case that the manufacturers in the supply chain are located right across the UK, which is a further industrial benefit of the strategic policy.

Sustainable Seas

Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park Excerpts

Thursday 17th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mary Creagh]

I thank my hon. Friend for her question. She is a fantastic member of the Committee and a real thought leader in many of the areas under discussion. As she said in Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs questions, she has been talking about the food system—“banging on” is how she put it, I think—and following the persistence principle for many years.

My hon. Friend is right about the race for deep sea mining. We are in a new wild west of exploration. The irony is that we are prepared to plunder and churn up the last great, unexplored wilderness—the equivalent of Yosemite national park and other brilliant places that people travel the world to see, such as our own Lake and Peak districts—so that we can have more “smart” phones. Those rare earth minerals are used in our smartphones and in some of our industrial applications. If we were better at recycling the rare earth elements in the 7 billion mobile phones, or however many there are, on the planet—I think there is at least one for every man, woman and child—we would not have to do that. A positive side-effect of the exploration is that we are finding out more about these unexplored areas, but the question is: what happens when we know they are there, and what will we discover? That is a problem.

[Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Lady for chairing the Committee and for her brilliant precis of a brilliant report. Needless to say, as a member of the Committee I fully endorse all its recommendations and am very proud of it.

I hope the hon. Lady will allow me to highlight two of the recommendations. The Government’s blue belt policy is probably our single biggest opportunity to protect a very large portion of the world’s oceans. The report rightly urges the Foreign Office to back full protection of the waters around Ascension Island. It is worth saying that the Ascension Island Council, as well as DEFRA, has made very promising noises, but the blockage seems to be the Foreign Office. The first recommendation, therefore, is for the Foreign Office to get going, agree with the Ascension Island Council and DEFRA, and provide maximum protection at minimum cost to an incredibly important part of the world.

The second recommendation is to build on the recent announcement of increased no-take areas around the South Sandwich Islands, to provide full protection for those extraordinary and pristine waters, much of which featured in the “Blue Planet” series. That view is backed by an almost unprecedented alliance of scientists, experts and non-governmental organisations. The solution will cost very little, if anything, in public money, but it will deliver huge results for nature, so will the Foreign Office get on with that as well?

[Mary Creagh]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman, who was instrumental in getting consensus around the recommendations to the Foreign Office. Ascension Island could benefit from a huge boost from tourism if it was designated. He is right that the Antarctic krill fishing industry is very heavily regulated, but, again, it is in danger of over-exploitation in order to feed our insatiable demand for farmed fish, including salmon. Increasing the no-take areas and protecting them properly is really, really important.

Climate Change: Extreme Weather Events

Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park Excerpts

Tuesday 13th November 2018 Westminster Hall

[Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Dorries.

I thank the hon. Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones) on initiating this hugely important debate. I share his disappointment that it has not attracted a slightly larger audience, although my colleagues on the Environmental Audit Committee have a legitimate excuse: they are at the Victoria and Albert Museum as part of a session looking at sustainable fashion.

It is always tempting to point to individual weather extremes and ascribe them to climate change. This year, we had heavy snowfall in March and the joint hottest summer on record. This is not about taking individual weather events and attributing them directly to climate change. That would be bad science, and would be easy to debunk and discredit. It is about looking at the overall trends, both here and globally, which do show a significant increase in extreme weather. The hon. Gentleman has given lots of examples, and I will briefly look at some additional ones.

The most recent Met Office report, of 2 November, which has already been cited, makes really depressing reading. It compares UK weather data from 1961 to 1990—30 years—with the 10 years between 2008 and 2017. It is pretty clear that the UK is experiencing an increase in weather extremes. The hottest days have become hotter, the number of warm spells has increased and the coldest days are not as cold. On average, the hottest day in each year over the past 10 years is 0.8° C hotter than it was in previous decades. The coldest days are also warmer: temperatures were an average of 1.7° C warmer in the past decade. So-called tropical nights, on which temperatures remain over 20° C, have also increased. In the 30 years between 1961 and 1990, there were eight such tropical nights. In the 10 years between 2008 and 2017, there were four, and we had two more this year.

The Met Office’s conclusion is that those extremes are consistent with overall man-made warming of the UK climate over the past 50 years, and the global trends are showing the same pattern. Globally, the five warmest years in recorded history have taken place since 2010, and 2014 was the hottest year ever recorded until 2015 and 2016. The warmest year on record was 2016, and eight months in that year were the warmest individual month recorded.

If the science is right and the trends continue, we will see appalling consequences: increasing food shortages, lands becoming uninhabitable, and refugees on a scale that we as a species have never had to deal with before. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees tells us that already, on average, 21.5 million people are displaced each year because of weather-related, sudden-onset hazards. It describes climate change as a “threat multiplier” for people in conflict zones—and it goes without saying that it is bad news for the balance of nature as well.

The difficulty with climate systems is that they are so complex that no computer model on earth can fully capture and take on board the full range of feedback, positive and negative. That means that those who seek to pour doubt on the overwhelming scientific consensus on the subject will always be able to do so, if that is what they want to do. The same goes for the consequences of climate change.

However, there is a fairly basic calculation to make. On the one hand, what would be the effect of listening to the sceptics, ignoring the overwhelming body of scientific evidence pointing to man-made climate change, and then being wrong? The turbulence and change would likely bring about an end to civilisation as we know it. The impacts on the natural world would be incalculable. It is not inconceivable that this fragile, precious planet that we live on would be altered to such an extent that it would no longer be able to sustain us as a species. That is the downside.

On the other hand, what would be the effect of listening to the scientific consensus, taking the necessary action and then being proven wrong? Accidentally, we would end up with a cleaner and eventually much cheaper energy system, protecting more of the world’s forests and ecosystems, and with an economic system that is more circular and less wasteful. It has always amazed me, in fact, that there is anyone who would look at that basic calculation and conclude that we are better off doing nothing. That just makes no sense. Indeed, almost everything that we need to do to tackle climate change is something that we would want to do irrespective of climate change.

What is interesting or, rather, infuriating is that over the years that I have been engaged on this issue—20 years ago, I used to edit The Ecologist magazine—the debate has consistently and conveniently shifted. At the beginning, we were told for years that climate change simply was not happening. Then we heard from the same people, “Well, it is happening, but it is nothing to do with our species.” A few years later, we would hear from the same people, “Well, it is happening and we are probably contributing to it, but the cost of tackling it is just too great—it’s punitive—and, by the way, it’s great because we might get a bit of wine in the UK”—that is, better wine; we already get some wine here.

I do not doubt that the challenge that we face is colossal, but action is well within our reach, and we now more or less know exactly what we need to do. The IPCC report, which has already been mentioned, lays it out pretty starkly. Almost the most alarming part of that report is the difference, according to the world’s leading climate scientists, between the effects of keeping the rise in warming to a maximum of 1.5° C, and keeping it to 2° C. They tell us that that half-degree would massively worsen the risks of floods, drought, extreme heat and, as a consequence, poverty for hundreds of millions of people. That half-degree is the difference between losing all the world’s corals, and managing to hold on to 10% of them. The number of people exposed to water stress would be 50% lower if we kept to a rise of 1.5° C instead of 2° C. That half-degree would mean hundreds of millions fewer people, particularly in the world’s poorest countries, being at risk of climate-related destitution. A half-degree of extra warming would lead to a forecasted 10 cm of additional pressure on coastlines.

Currently, we are not heading for that apocalyptic 2° C rise; more likely, we are heading towards a 3° C rise. We will have to change profoundly so much of what we do: not only how we generate electricity, but how we use it; how we manage land; and transport, food and industry. That will require profound change, and investment on the part of Governments, individuals and businesses.

We can be proud that the UK helped to make the Paris agreement more ambitious, and of the cross-party Climate Change Act 2008, which set the target of an 80% cut in carbon emissions from 1990 levels by 2050. I am delighted that the Minister for Energy and Clean Growth, my right hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Claire Perry), who has responsibility for climate change, is looking at how we can go further and make net zero emissions a reality. Renewable electricity capacity in the UK has quadrupled since 2010, and we are world leaders in offshore wind.

However, given the scale of the challenge, as outlined in detail in that IPCC report, clearly we have a very, very long way to go; at the current rate of progress, we will not meet our fourth and fifth carbon budgets. Domestically, that means doing absolutely everything we can now to encourage a transition to electric vehicles, and not waiting until 2040. It means saying no to infrastructure projects such as the third runway at Heathrow, which will increase carbon emissions; rejecting the Government’s proposal to allow fracking without proper local consent; and creating the friendliest possible environment for the accelerated development and roll-out of new, clean technologies.

There is a lot more that we can do globally as well. We need to build on the success of the international climate fund by using much a greater proportion of our overseas aid budget to protect nature. The IPCC maps out four pathways to capping the rise at 1.5° C, and reforestation is critical to all four of them. Apart from transport emissions, deforestation is the single largest source of carbon dioxide emissions; deforestation alone accounts for up to a fifth of all carbon emissions. Forests are, I think, one of the world’s largest carbon sinks; they absorb around 2.5 billion tonnes of carbon every year and they store billions more. However, we are losing 18.7 million acres of forest every year—the equivalent of 27 football pitches every single minute. That is lunacy; it is madness. Protecting forests means helping to protect the world and insulate it against climate change.

However, protecting forests is so much more important even than that. Around 1.6 billion people, which is about a quarter of the world’s population, rely directly on forests for their livelihoods, and many of them are the world’s poorest people. I do not like the crudeness of the calculations that we sometimes hear, but I will cite one all the same: we are told that forests provide around $100 billion a year in goods and services, such as clean water, healthy soils and the like. They are home to 80% of the world’s terrestrial biodiversity.

Although the UK can be proud to be the only nation in the G7, or indeed the G20, to hit the UN’s target on overseas aid last year, and proud of being the third largest donor in the world after the US and Germany, a minimal fraction of that overseas development money—possibly as little as 0.4%—goes to nature. That is such a wasted opportunity. The aim of the Department for International Development is to tackle poverty; how on earth can we expect to do that if the very world on which we all depend is annihilated? Of course, the world’s poorest people depend much more directly on nature than richer people for the free services that it provides. If we destroy nature, we will plunge whole communities into desperate poverty. We have learned again this month of the sheer extent to which our species is denuding the natural world. Since 1972, which is more or less the year in which I was born, we have lost around 60% of the world’s animals.

I do not believe there is any real argument around the science of climate change, and I do not think that there is any argument at all around the annihilation of the planet that is happening right now, on our watch. Logically, this has to be the defining issue of our age. Very simply, if the scale of our response as a Government does not match the scale of the problem, we are failing. My plea to this Government, via the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, my hon. Friend the Member for Rochester and Strood (Kelly Tolhurst), who speaks today for the Minister with responsibility for climate change, is: let us be world leaders, as we can be, in restoring ecosystems on a scale that matches the problem.

Clean Growth Strategy

Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park Excerpts

Thursday 12th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Claire Perry]

To reassure the right hon. Gentleman, not only has the Green Investment Bank—it is now known as the Green Investment Group—signed up to the plan, it has joined our green finance taskforce. We have asked our leading minds and operators in financial services, insurance, risk assessment and financial regulation to come together, so that we can not only mobilise the level of private capital that we need to drive this transformation in the UK, but export that incredible professional expertise right across the world. The taskforce is already coming up with solutions, and we will again be able to lead the world by mobilising capital and investing the right amount that we need to decarbonise.

[Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on producing this brilliant strategy. It is brimming with ambition and full of good ideas, as we would expect from her. It is great stuff, but I just want to ask about one issue. The strategy tells us that transport emissions have been cut by 2% since 1990 compared with an average of well above 20% in all others sectors, so if we are to hit the 2050 targets, we will need something really radical in transport. The strategy talks about banning the sale of petrol and diesel cars by 2040, and I want my hon. Friend to reassure me that that will be equal to the challenge we face.

[Claire Perry]

My hon. Friend will of course know that per vehicle emissions have actually dropped. Cars are now about 20% more efficient, but we are using more of them. Reducing congestion and getting cleaner air is a really important benefit of taking action, but I hear what he is saying. The ambition is accelerating all the time. We announced ending the sale of conventional petrol and diesel cars and it is interesting that the Netherlands has come out with something similar. We are all doing this together. Things are the same with unabated coal. We said that we would phase it out by 2025 and Canada has said similar things. There is a genuine, exciting ambition, and things happen when we set such ambitions.

We have been talking about ending the sale of petrol and diesel cars for years, but we set the ambition and had that conversation and then many of the major manufacturers that are producing cars in the UK brought forward their plans for electric and ultra-low emission vehicles. For example, BMW announced that it will be building the electric Mini in the UK. This country already makes one in five of the electric vehicles sold in Europe, and it is through setting ambitions and then investing in innovations such as the Faraday challenge that we can be a world leader in making such vehicles and accelerating their transformation. However, this is not only about the vehicles; we also have to be able to charge them up. It is therefore important that we accelerate the roll-out of what we want to be the world’s most effective charging network, so that performance and price, not charging, are the only considerations when buying a car.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park Excerpts

Tuesday 12th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)]

16. What steps the Government are taking to meet their renewable energy and carbon budget targets.

[The Minister of State, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Claire Perry)]

As I have mentioned several times, the UK has led the world in introducing legally binding carbon budgets with cross-party support, and we have exceeded our budgets to date. We are also on track to exceed our ambition to generate 30% of our power from renewables by 2021—it is looking like we will deliver 35%. However, all that has not been done at the expense of economic growth and productivity. Indeed, yesterday’s PwC report says that Britain is leading the world in clean growth and is reducing emissions while growing the economy.

[Zac Goldsmith]

Millions of tonnes of wood pellets from clear felling biodiverse forests in the US, Canada and the Baltic states are burned to make electricity for the UK every year. In the light of clear evidence from the old Department—what used to be called the Department of Energy and Climate Change—that that results in carbon emissions at least equal to those of coal, will my hon. Friend reconsider the huge annual subsidies for large-scale, inefficient biomass electricity generation?

[Claire Perry]

My hon. Friend’s question demonstrates his deep knowledge in this area, but I am happy to reassure him that my Department’s follow-up, which was published in February this year, to the biomass energy counterfactual study that he references showed that the UK’s imported biomass is both sustainable and carbon beneficial. Although there is a risk of non-sustainable practices, they are not happening thanks to our strict sustainability criteria, and we continue to monitor the situation, because we are determined to maintain our global reputation for clean growth.

Hinkley Point C

Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park Excerpts

Thursday 15th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

No, I have said that the construction costs will be entirely financed by the private investors in the site. It is important that we take a consistent long-term approach to energy policy, and in so far as this can be cross-party, that will be beneficial. It is especially ironic that two Liberal Democrat Energy Secretaries were closely involved in the negotiation of this deal. The right hon. Gentleman obviously takes a different view.

[Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)]

Can my right hon. Friend confirm that, by the end of its life, this new power plant will have generated the most expensive energy in the history of energy generation? Does he agree with the National Audit Office that, by that point, consumers will have ended up subsidising EDF to the tune of £30 billion? Finally, can he tell us what is going to happen to the mountains of nuclear waste that this plant will generate?

[Greg Clark]

Securing a reliable source of energy for 60 years is a good investment in the future stability of our energy supplies, and that is worth having. Of course it is impossible to know what the alternatives will be during that time. We have seen very volatile energy prices. Sir Winston Churchill’s principle on energy security was that diversity, and diversity alone, was the key. I think that that is the right approach. I said earlier that decommissioning was provided for explicitly in the contract.