Carbon Budget Order 2011
Debate between Lord Turnbull and Lord Marland
Lord Turnbull
Perhaps I may help out the noble Lord by responding to a comment from the noble Lord, Lord Prescott, my Secretary of State for a year in 1998. It was a wonderful experience working for him. He asked “What has changed?”. I think it was Keynes who said, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?” The temperature in 1998 was probably the peak. Since then, contrary to what the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, said, there has been no rise in the temperature. If you go into the HadCRUT 3 series and go into that little bit called global, you will get the deviation from the baseline month by month, and the yearly average. In fact, 2011 was probably, in the 13 years since 1998, the second or third coldest and the first four months have been just as cold. That is the principal evidence that has caused me to change my mind.
Lord Marland
It is wonderful to hear such harmony and I am very grateful for this scientific question. I think we are now down to half a minute. What was the question that the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, asked?
Energy: Fourth Carbon Report
Debate between Lord Turnbull and Lord Marland
Lord Marland
The noble Lord’s views on climate change are well known. As I said, the energy-intensive industries are fundamental to this country. Obviously, it is incredibly disappointing that, at this particular economic time, they are leaving and moving to China. The whole reason why we will be spending a lot of time looking at it is that we can address some of the fears that the noble Lord puts forward. I would say, though, that we must be very careful about criticising some of the endeavours here. We are accessing, arguably, a £31-trillion marketplace, which will be good for British business. We already see signs of Siemens starting factories, of GE wanting to start a factory, of new investment coming into the country, which we want to encourage. We also have to realise that this Government—and indeed the previous Government—inherited an electricity market dependent on oil and gas, which was diminishing in supply. No Government had put in place a replacement for it that allowed us to have the energy security that we desperately need to stand alone. Energy security is very high on this Government’s priority list. I would hope that the noble Lord would recognise that, and support us in that endeavour.
Lord Turnbull
My Lords, I naturally sympathise with the predicament of the Minister having to ventriloquise the zeal of the Minister in another place—not for the first time this afternoon. However, will he personally reflect on whether the robustness of climate science justifies the UK, uniquely in the world, setting statutory carbon reduction targets way out into the middle of this century? Secondly, will he reflect on whether the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is still credible as the principal source of advice to Governments in this field?
Lord Marland
I am not sure whether the answers are yes, no, no, yes. Broadly speaking, I do not stand here trotting out cant or zeal that has been put to me by my colleagues. We work very closely as a team in coming up with what we think are the right policies. There is no difference between us in that. The Committee on Climate Change does an excellent job. It gives us a guiding principle on where we need to go as a responsible society. We must remember that we have a responsibility not just for our lifetime, but our children’s lifetime, and—the noble Lord is too young to have grandchildren —our grandchildren’s lifetime.
Lord Marland
That is why we must commit to reducing our carbon footprint. We must put energy security high on our list. We must make use of the wonderful natural resources that we have in this country to fulfil that security.