China: Mineral Acquisitions

Lord Lawson of Blaby Excerpts

Thursday 12th July 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

I think we all agree that we do not want to go around lecturing and hectoring, but we have our own values, we have had our own experience, and we have made our own errors in the past. It is possible that by sharing our values and not reneging on them in any way we can help other countries avoid some of the mistakes that we made. I do not think that there is anything much to apologise for in working with other countries to ensure that today’s and tomorrow’s standards for the extractive industries are developed and maintained. I believe that this is a matter that the Chinese Government, as a responsible member of the World Trade Organisation, fully recognise.

[Lord Lawson of Blaby]

My Lords, is it not clear that the Chinese would not be spending vast amounts of money and a large amount of political capital in getting hold of hydrocarbon resources—in sub-Saharan Africa in particular—if they did not intend to use them? Given that, is it not clear that no global decarbonisation agreement is possible? Since it is not, is it not quixotic, to say the least, that the British Government should be forcing British industry and British consumers, particularly poor consumers, to have more expensive energy in the name of unilateral decarbonisation, which is completely pointless if there is no global agreement?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

Well, it is not quite pointless. As my noble friend knows well, China, although reluctant to commit itself to legal binding global agreements for which some others have argued, is in fact investing enormous amounts in decarbonisation and low-carbon technologies. It is working very closely with the United Kingdom and our technologies and developing in those areas. All these are very valuable moves forward in the decarbonisation movement and, one hopes, effective moves worldwide against climate violence in the future. I think there is value in this.

The pursuit of international global targets that are legally binding is going to be a very uphill task in relation not merely to China but to other countries as well. The general message coming to us from Beijing and the vast Chinese industrial machine is that they are well on the path to low-carbon technologies, and we are going to work with them on that.