Global Climate Change

Lord Haskel Excerpts

Thursday 29th October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Haskel (Lab)]

My noble friend has drawn our attention to climate change on many occasions. He is absolutely right to do so again in anticipation of the summit in Paris. The Paris agreement is intended to make sure that increased warming does not exceed an internationally agreed limit of 2 degrees centigrade. Of course, you cannot force countries to cut their emissions, so, in preparation for the Paris agreement, nations have been submitting voluntary plans to show how they propose to cut their emissions from 2020.

To help understand what is going on, the Financial Times has produced a handy climate change calculator, which I have been looking at. The calculator shows that the best pledges come from the United States and the European Union, and the worst from India, Russia and, yes, China.

[A noble Lord]

Oh!

[Lord Haskel]

That is what the calculator shows. Only Brazil is pledging to match the efforts of the European Union and the United States, while other countries are somewhere in-between. The calculator also shows that, if all pledges are kept, warming will be restricted to just under 4 degrees—well above the target of 2 degrees. While I welcome the Government’s ambitious pledge to reduce emissions, do they have any thoughts on how we can persuade other nations to be more ambitious and increase their promises to cut emissions?

Calculators of this kind are good at giving a general picture, but the regular curve implies that climate change is a gradual linear shift over the years, which, of course, it is not. As my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Stern, explained, the shifts will be sudden and erratic. They will be unpredictable and may not always be in one direction. One region can suffer rising sea levels, causing homelessness, water shortages and inadequate harvests. In another, sudden surges in temperature and drought can lead to a lack of food supplies, and to disease and epidemic. These are changes that will have the practical effect of compounding the problems of poverty, poor health and, in particular, weak government. My noble friend Lady Kennedy explained that these changes would force even more people to migrate across the Mediterranean or through the Balkans. The case for action is not simply humanitarian; it is also economic.

The Government have made a real effort to seal a climate change accord in Paris. They have promised to contribute nearly £6 billion over five years to help the climate change fund and we are doing quite a lot to phase out coal. Why, then, did we go in the opposite direction of cutting support for wind and solar power? If subsidies have to be withdrawn, surely they should be withdrawn from the fossil fuel industry.

To help support the US pledge, President Obama obtained the support of 81 major American corporations. There are many British corporations that take a similar view. Will the Government take steps to acknowledge and work with them? In their recent paper Fixing the Foundations, the Government commit themselves to:

“Reliable and low-carbon energy, at a price we can afford”.

This can only be done jointly with business. How? First, convince people that climate responsibility is not in conflict with economic growth. Why? Because the present path is not sustainable. A low-carbon, cleaner environment is. This is the message from companies that have pledged to support a cut to carbon emissions.

Decarbonising the economy can take many forms and offer many economic possibilities, but individuals can help, too. At home we have virtually stopped using the car and we are the proud owners of electric bicycles.

My noble friend Lord Hunt and other noble Lords are concerned about protecting the urban environment. They are right. Air pollution is already causing a large number of premature deaths and serious illnesses. As my noble friend Lord Prescott reminded us, in places our level of pollution is above EU limits. A Supreme Court judgment earlier this year requires the Government to submit plans to make us compliant. There are now both moral and legal arguments for us to act.

The recent consultation document has a number of welcome elements, such as a national framework of clean air zones, retrofitting and alternative fuels for vehicles, as well as electric cars. I draw the Minister’s attention to the work of the Environmental Industries Commission—I declare an interest as a past president. Member companies are actively engaged in air pollution control. These firms show how cleaner air can be achieved more speedily in practice by using more cost-effective technologies, and which technology is right for which geographical area. Adopting these technologies, instead of buying them in from elsewhere, would help to drive the growth of the UK air pollution industry.

I return to the Paris summit. I have tried to show that we can have rising living standards while taking a responsible attitude towards the management of air pollution and climate change risks. Let us hope that the Paris summit is a start to the world acting together.