Low-carbon Growth Links (China)

Alan Whitehead Excerpts

Thursday 18th April 2013 Westminster Hall

[Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)]

I do not want to detain hon. Members for long; indeed, I cannot, because I have only four minutes. Just as an aside, I draw hon. Members’ attention to an Asterix comic of a long time ago, entitled “La Zizanie”, which was about a person who went into Asterix’s camp and annoyed everyone so much, setting people against each other, that they lost track of what it was they were trying to talk about. I merely want to leave that on the table.

The Select Committee report is not about whether Britain has an imperialistic relationship with China and wishes to influence the whole of Chinese development. It is a modest effort to look at how the UK’s climate change and energy considerations might be attached to relations with the largest emitter of CO₂ in the world. I am talking about a country that is developing rapidly economically, and changing equally rapidly its position as regards its stance on climate change. The report tried to consider how those two things might be matched. Unless we do not believe that there is any merit whatever in having any sort of international dialogue with anybody, we should take that Select Committee view at face value and welcome it for what it is.

The report is not a view that all is rosy in the world of China, but a timely reminder that China is changing its view on climate change. A number of things are happening in China that underline that view. Indeed, just yesterday, the Minister in charge of climate policies, Xie Zhenhua, indicated that the aim for the Chinese economy now is a reduction in the 2011 levels of carbon intensity by 40% to 45% by 2020. It also wants to boost its non-fossil fuel use to 15% of energy consumption by 2020. He talked about the beginning of the carbon market in Shenzhen in June and then later in the year in Shanghai. Significantly, he said that instruments will be included in the Shanghai carbon trading market that will take credits off the market when supplies are too high and prices are too low. He said that China would learn from the difficulties that are taking place in Europe and that it was committed to the development of a carbon trading market. In the 11th five-year plan, China had attempted to reach some targets. Among other things, it closed down factories for a number of weeks towards the end of the five-year period for each region to reach its target.

China understands the situation now and has developed its way of doing things enormously, so that its measures on carbon trading arrangements begin to coincide with other countries around the world. Therefore, there could be international co-operation on these matters, built on the basis of everyone following similar practices. We should not dismiss that on the grounds that the UK has a population of 65 million or 70 million and that China has a population of many billions, thus making us insignificant. Actually, we have a role to play in this matter and in a dialogue with China, along with other countries in the EU and across the world. That takes us back to that multilateral discussion that we were concerned about in the previous debate. This is not about Britain being imperialistic and trying to tell China what to do; it is a question of the UK’s contribution to a country that appears to be changing many of its assumptions about its own growth and how it goes forward.

Whatever we may think about elements of the political and economic situation in China and how they are dealt with, it is worth while collaborating with China to a far greater extent for the greater good, not only of China or this country but of the wider world. If the Committee’s report has been able to emphasise and underpin that process, it has achieved a good purpose. However, hon. Members should not read into the report something that is not there. It is an honest attempt to consider how UK advances and UK positions may be aligned more closely with other countries and with China in particular. China is indeed changing its stance on climate change—it is not a delusion to say that—and for its own purposes, as well as for international purposes, beginning to make substantial changes in how it goes about its economic activity, and it is important that we do likewise—

[Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)]

Order.