Climate Change

Alan Whitehead Excerpts

Monday 24th June 2019 Commons Chamber

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

I rise to emphasise just how strongly we support this order. As you have said, Madam Deputy Speaker, we have 90 minutes to debate it, but I for one think that that is miserably insufficient time for what we need to talk about. I hope that the parliamentary authorities will arrange a whole day’s debate as soon as possible on the order and its implications. I of course accept that this is how orders work, but I know that hon. Members across the House are itching to talk about the consequences of this momentous change and to review what it means for how we go about tackling climate change, the measures we will have to take and, indeed, the commitments we will have to make over the next few years to make sure that the order does not fall dead from a legislative press but instead really works in our war on climate change.

The Labour party has long called for that change. My hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey) called in the House for net zero as long as a year ago, as indeed did the Leader of the Opposition, my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn). The change has, of course, been widely called for by climate strikers and green activists across the country. This first step in the right direction is for them as much as for the Members debating it today. It is also a tribute to the sagacity and draftsmanship of the original Climate Change Act 2008.

The 2008 Act was taken through this House by my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband), who is in his place. The fact is that such a momentous and far reaching change in the UK’s target horizon, on the removal of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and the move to a permanent net zero carbon economy, can be effected by an order consisting, effectively, of one article and the substitution of one figure in one subsection in the Act. It is possible to do that, because, as the Minister mentioned, section 2 of the Act states that the Secretary of State may, by order, amend the percentage specified in section 1(1)—the current 80% target—if it appears to the Secretary of State that there have been significant developments in scientific knowledge about climate change.

I am sure the Minister agrees that that is precisely what has happened since the passing of the Act. What we thought might be a sustainable emissions reduction target to keep the global temperature rise to below 2°C by 2050 already looks insufficiently robust. The UK’s contribution to a global effort seeking to arrive at a 2°C outcome—a commitment to reduce the UK’s emission load of carbon dioxide by 80% from a baseline of 1990 levels—is no longer sufficient. We need to aim for global temperature rises of no more than 1.5°C by 2050. The Minister mentioned the recent seminal Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, which shows us why the target is so important and why even limiting temperature change to 2° will not get us to a tolerable safe place as far as the effects of global warming on the planet are concerned. That does indeed count as the “developments in scientific knowledge” specified in the Act.

The UK’s contribution to the global effort has to ensure that we can achieve net zero emissions by 2050—or, I would hope, before 2050. That has to be our new target and it has to be enshrined in our legislation. I say before 2050, because it may well be that further scientific advances indicate that we need to achieve the target before then. I think that that will be the case and the Act could be amended further, if necessary, to take that into account.

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

Does the 2017 manifesto commitment to a revolution in fracking and shale gas extraction not fly in the face of the grand ambitions we are discussing today?

[Dr Whitehead]

If one is trying to get a zero-emissions outcome, trying to get a lot more high carbon fuel out of the ground using some of the most difficult ways possible does not exactly seem to be in line with that target.

[Wera Hobhouse]

Can we encourage the Minister to acknowledge—I wish he would listen—that as the 80% target now needs to be 100% by 2050, now is the perfect time to say we no longer support fracking?

[Dr Whitehead]

That is one of many things we will have to do in the very near future as we address how properly to sort out the new target. As I will come on to say, there is a big list of challenging things we need to do, and that is just one of them. There are many, many new policy guidelines that we need to get into place to get us to that target.

The Committee on Climate Change, established under the Act as the guardian of science in our proceedings on climate change in the UK, reported strongly, as has been outlined, that we need to move to net zero and that we could do it by 2050, within the cost parameters established in the original target, if we put in place the very challenging policies it outlined. We strongly support that small change that means so much.

As the Minister will know, however, that is not the end of the matter. In fact, it is barely the beginning. I therefore want to ask the Minister for some points of clarification and some further information when he comes to respond to this short debate. There are, essentially, four points to consider.

First, the Minister will know all about the carbon budgets, which were admirably and clearly established under the Climate Change Act. They are designed to keep us on track for a steady reduction in emissions and to put in place measures to keep emissions decline on track. It set out three budgets from the 2008 start date, established in total size by the Committee on Climate Change, and required a Government plan to be put into place on how to meet each budget. The Minister will know that while we have done well by international standards in reducing our emissions by 47%—it is much less in consumption emissions, if we look at it that way—that is not a sufficient trajectory for net zero carbon targets. Our current performance, and likely achievements on known policies right now, place us in a disadvantageous position as we seek to adhere to the budgets that will drive emissions down to net zero by 2050.

The carbon budgets are designed—all five of them, to date—to put us on a path for an 80% reduction and 2°, not net zero 1.5°. It is shocking that we are currently failing to get to grips with the later budgets, budgets four and five, even under the circumstances of 2°. We have exceeded our earlier budgets only partially because of policy and partially because of economic circumstances, meeting or exceeding the first two budgets and probably the third.

After that, however, it gets very sketchy. Indeed, the latest updated emissions projections from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy show us badly off target: over by 139 megatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent for the fourth carbon budget, or 7% over on central estimates; and 245 megatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent, or 13% over the central estimate for the fifth carbon budget. This is at a time when we will need to introduce a radically reduced sixth carbon budget, and subsequent budgets, to meet our new challenges. We are failing even to get to grips with the old targets, which will make our work so much harder when the later budgets come upon us.

What urgent steps are the Minister and the Government taking to get us back on track for the fourth and fifth carbon budgets, on which we are currently failing so badly? I can make an offer to the Minister: if he wants to sit down and sort out a raft of new policies, extended commitments to policy programmes, and extensions of the urgency of existing programmes, we will happily jointly draft those with him, so that there is solid buy-in across the House for that vital initial effort.

Secondly, we received the alarming news recently that the Government seemingly intend to roll over historical surpluses—some 88 megatonnes of carbon dioxide saved from the second carbon budget—to ease the passage of the third carbon budget, thus creating a higher starting point for the fourth and fifth carbon budgets. That move is not completely illegitimate in terms of the construction of the Act, but the Committee on Climate change has always recommended that that should not be done, and that banking and borrowing on future budgets would gravely distort the safe progression downwards of carbon dioxide emissions. Similarly, we should not seek to offset our own account through international emissions allowances, as the Government seem intent on doing.

Will the Minister explain why the Government have moved to set aside emission surpluses from earlier budgets? Will he say now that he will unwind that intention and not use them to inflate future budgets? Will he confirm that international offsets will have no place in future budget setting? We note in the explanatory memorandum to the order that despite the committee’s recommendation in the report that the UK legislate as soon as possible to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, with the target of a 100% reduction in greenhouse gases from 1990 covering all sectors of the economy including aviation and shipping, the Government have, for the time being, merely left headroom in the budgets for international aviation and shipping. Shipping and aviation currently make up 3.2% and 2.1% of global emissions, but this could rise to over 30% if action is not taken alongside other greenhouse gas reductions. What is the Government’s intention with regard to aviation and shipping coming properly and fully into carbon budgets, and why are they continuing to delay what we all know is an essential inclusion if those targets are to be meaningful for the future?

Thirdly, does the Minister recognise, as I am sure he does, that net zero is the practical outcome of the legislation to require a 100% reduction in the UK’s net carbon account? Net zero means that in addition to developing low carbon policies, as we were for the 80% target, we have to develop policies that are essentially carbon negative—that put carbon back into the ground in one way or another to compensate for the remaining positive carbon elements of our overall account. This means that techniques such as BECCS—bio-energy with carbon capture and storage—extended carbon capture and storage, carbon capture from the air and radical afforestation are all important policies for the future target. What plans do the Government have—[Interruption.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I hesitate to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but before he comes to his further points I hope he is bearing in mind that there is well under an hour left in this debate and that a great many Members wish to participate.

[Dr Whitehead]

Indeed, Madam Deputy Speaker. I assure you that I have about half a page to go, so I hope that that will keep the timetable intact.

What plans do the Government have to proceed urgently with negative carbon policies? We will be on hand to help them if they want to bring in those policies at an early stage.

Finally, the Minister will no doubt have been copied into the recent letter from the Chancellor concerning legislating for net zero, in which he urged that there should not be legislation until a review of the costs had been carried out by the Treasury. The letter was widely regarded as being somewhat climate economic illiterate, in that it set out only the costs and not the benefits of moving forward in this way. As I said, the Committee on Climate Change indicated that in its opinion the GDP cost of 1% to 2% was unchanged from when the 80% target was set—this was presumably approved by the Treasury. Indeed, as Lord Stern reminded us in his seminal report of 2006, which seems a long time ago, the GDP costs of doing nothing might be several times as much.

Will the Minister provide assurance on that point? Indeed, I take it from the fact that we have this legislation, and that it has not been put off to some time in the future, that the Treasury’s rather insidious advice has not been taken on board. Might it not be a good idea to set out in the round and well in advance what the overall costs and benefits of moving to this target will be? I look forward to the jobs in the low-carbon industries that we will set to work replacing our infrastructure, so that it works for a green future; the immense improvements in the quality of our environment that the measure will bring; and the assurance that we will leave a world fit for our children and grandchildren to live in. That surely does not have a price, but, if it does, it is well worth paying.

[Several hon. Members rose—]