Energy Bill
Debate between Viscount Ridley and Baroness Browning
Viscount Ridley
If we embrace within the next couple of years a decarbonisation target that is stricter than shale gas can help us to get to, I think that there will be a problem in the way of shale gas.
Perhaps I may turn briefly to climate change. This is not the time to re-fight the climate change debate, but others have brought it up. Given that shale gas offers the possibility of a slower rate of decarbonisation—not to as low a level of target as we are talking about—we need to retain the flexibility of that and to take into account where the climate change science has shifted to. It is simply not the case that the science has become more alarming in the past few years. There has been a series of studies of climate sensitivity in recent years by Otto et al., Aldrin et al., Ring and Searchinger and many others. The biggest of those, the Otto et al. study, which had 14 leading authors, two of whom are co-ordinating lead authors of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, concluded that transient climate sensitivity—that is, the number that we are likely to reach in about 50 years—is about half of what we thought it was. It is about 1.3 degrees centigrade, of which we have had nearly half already. It is not true to say that we are seeing damaging effects on weather from climate change. Weather is not climate change. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change SREX report in late 2011 came to the very firm conclusion that you could not see a signal of climate change in current climate events, neither in droughts, floods, storms nor any of those kinds of things. Professor Roger Pielke at the University of Colorado has come to exactly the same conclusion. There is no evidence yet that we are seeing damage. Meanwhile, we are seeing clear damage from climate change policies. The denial of cheap electricity to people in poor countries and the effect of biofuels on food prices are having a demonstrable effect on both hunger and well-being in other parts of the world. We have to take these things into account.
I hasten to add that I accept the science of climate change. By that, I mean I accept that carbon dioxide has its full greenhouse effect. At Second Reading, the noble Lord, Lord Prescott, said that I was denying this, but I accept that it has the full effect. However, the full effect is only 1.2 degrees centigrade warming for a doubling of the quantity of carbon dioxide—it is there in section 8.6.2.3 of the latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The danger arises from the potential feedback effects from water vapour in the atmosphere. We can measure whether those are happening and it is clear they are happening more slowly than expected—that is what those papers I cited are all about.
This is not about saying that climate change is or is not happening; it is about saying that potentially the world is changing. We are finding flexibilities in the way in which the world is changing which mean that we should retain flexibility in policy. That is why I oppose the amendment.
Baroness Browning
My Lords, I shall speak briefly because I realise that it has been a long debate. I want to make just a couple of points. First, the Government are taking the most important step in putting in place the legislative framework to allow a binding target range to be set at the right time. I understand—perhaps my noble friend the Minister will confirm this—that there is nothing in the Bill to say that if circumstances change in the next two or three years the Government could not go ahead and make that announcement. I believe that that flexibility is in the legislation. When the decision is made—whether it is 2016 or before—the fact that the legislative framework is in place will mean that it can be implemented with more speed than if we had to come back to take this matter through Parliament. That in itself is an advantage. I therefore support what the Government are proposing.
Secondly, I want to press the fact that all Governments have required flexibility in this area of policy, as was mentioned so ably by my noble friend Lord Jenkin of Roding. I just share with the Committee a conversation that I had when I was a member of the Public Accounts Committee in 2005 with the then DTI Permanent Secretary who then had responsibility for energy policy, Sir Robin Young. During an evidence session, I pressed him on whether he would guarantee integrity of supply in the light of the Government’s failure to make an announcement on whether they would renew our nuclear plants, in particular as we were well aware at the time that the Magnox reactors were coming to the end of their life. In response to my question, he confirmed that a minimum lead time would be 15 years, so in 2005 we were getting quite anxious about where the policy was going. I asked him to guarantee integrity of supply. In his reply, he stated:
“The absolute guarantee is in the white paper”—
that was the Government’s 2003 energy White Paper—
“that a reliable competitive and affordable supply of energy is a number one priority for the government, of equal priority to the low carbon objective”.