Climate

Lord Grantchester Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd April 2019 Grand Committee

[Lord Grantchester (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, for initiating today’s debate and challenging us to consider the climate emergency movement. It is more usual to apply the term “emergency” to specific events that everyone can recognise, to signal that an exceptional response is required. To apply it to the process of climate change underlines the urgency of the situation, to recognise that more extreme weather patterns are occurring across the world more frequently, and that emergency action is required to avert more catastrophic consequences, both numerically and in intensity.

While it is true that much progress has been achieved, that must not be a reason for self-congratulatory complacency. The climate emergency movement has highlighted the importance of setting a new policy framework across public institutions that recognises the urgency, sets specific tough but fair targets and relevant timeframes to prioritise policy responses and embed them in overarching governance arrangements, and to communicate this both nationally and inter- nationally.

Each organisational level of government must fulfil its responsibilities through relevant ranges of actions to reduce emissions and increase resilience. With more easily achievable low-hanging fruit having been plucked already, it is now imperative to redouble the UK’s national efforts to tackle the most intransigent areas of heating, gas decarbonisation and transport, including shipping. The Government’s official target is still to reduce carbon emissions by 80% below 1990 levels. With the IPCC’s recent report that recognises the tipping point of 1.5 degrees warming above pre-industrial levels, that target is likely to be breached between 2030 and 2050. Labour has recognised that this will require a net-zero emissions target, not a new cost-benefit analysis.

The pace of change must increase as the urgency is not being adequately addressed by this Government. Being science-led, Labour will tackle the structural change by resourcing a national transformational fund that will also address the behavioural change needed across society, encompassing waste, energy efficiency, transport and the environmental security of a circular economy. The scale of the response needed must be addressed at all levels of government, including internationally through international trade deals.

The estimated 1.5% fall in emissions seen in 2018 was the smallest drop recorded over the past six years. What now is the Government’s response to the Committee on Climate Change’s challenge that the Government are no longer on course even to meet the fourth and fifth carbon budgets? Will the Government now bring forward ambitious and credible proposals for reducing emissions for the lagging sector areas of transport and heat, and could they inform us of that today?

The Environmental Audit Committee recently stated that the Government are “coasting on climate change”. Does the Minister recognise that the pace of change must increase across all government departments to eliminate policy contradictions and mixed messages across government, such as those on fracking?

The UK needs a new green industrial revolution. Greta Thunberg and our schoolchildren are right to demand it, and the Government and the investment community need to resource it through environmental governance.