UN Framework Convention on Climate Change

Debate between Barry Gardiner and Luciana Berger

Thursday 18th April 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mr Lilley]

The hon. Gentleman said that we were living through the biggest extinction since perhaps the Palaeozoic era, and he implied that that was through climate change, but he has been unable to cite a single species that has been rendered extinct through climate change. I invite him to do so, or to give me a source where I could find that information.

[Luciana Berger]

rose—

[Barry Gardiner]

I give way to my hon. Friend.

[Luciana Berger]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. I was able to do some research on my iPad during those interventions, and I was able to identify just one such species—the Ecuadorian harlequin frog.

[Luciana Berger]

Forgive me. Well, I just found that first one; I will endeavour to find some more species during the course of our debate. That was the first one that came up in my Google search.

[Barry Gardiner]

I think that the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden will not dispute the fact that we are living through the greatest period of extinctions that has been known in the fossil record; he has not disputed that. What he has sought to dispute is whether it is in any way linked to a change in climate, and therefore whether it is in any way linked to the rise in the use of fossil fuels. He should look at the way in which species are migrating—he talked about a loss of habitat, but the reason why there is a loss of habitat in many parts of the world is, of course, because of the change in climate, which has actually destroyed the habitat that used to be there. I do not think that he can separate out, in the way that he seeks to, the effects of climate change from the effects of habitat destruction. To do so is precisely to ignore what is going on.

We have to understand that 50% of the GDP of the poorest people in the world is dependent on their immediate environment, and it is that immediate environment that is under such significant threat. In parts of Africa, we have seen whole habitats destroyed. I sometimes wonder why we spend millions of pounds protecting our vessels as they pass the coasts of Ethiopia and Somalia but never give a thought as to why the pirates that we are protecting them from are there in the first place. Of course, they are there in large part because of the desertification that has taken place in that part of Africa—because of the loss of agriculture and of economic opportunities there. Not to link what is happening with climate change to the sustainable development goals would be a serious error indeed.

Let us consider the Durban platform for enhanced action that has been established, and let us look at the way in which, by 2015, we are to try and arrive at an agreement between countries as to what will happen in 2020 in respect of the commitments made there. Many hon. Members have talked of the difficulty in securing those commitments and the difficulty of some countries agreeing their programme of action without certainty and knowledge of what other countries are prepared to do. Russia, Canada and Japan have been mentioned as examples. These are extremely difficult negotiations because, as the Committee’s report acknowledges, every country will act in its own national interest. During the negotiations, we have been true to form and have very often acted in our national interest as well.

I would challenge the Minister on some of the positions that our country has adopted in the negotiations. Let us consider the position that we have adopted with respect to Russia. We have been saying, “With all the hot air that they had after the demise of the Soviet Union, they have arrived in a much more fortunate position, and we want now to discount that.” But in that negotiation any Russian with common sense would say simply, “Look, our economy suffered an enormous transition—an enormous hit on our domestic economy. We’ve paid the price for being in the position that we are now in, with that hot air, with those emissions credits.”

The original intention of Kyoto was simply that we should see the reduction below 1990 levels. Perhaps due to the collapse of the old Soviet economy, Russia has achieved that reduction, but it has not achieved it without substantial cost. That is just one example of the way in which the negotiations that we believe we are entering into in good faith may be perceived by the other side as negotiations that are not being conducted in good faith. Sometimes we have to look much more carefully at the principles of equity when we consider how one reaches a just settlement in this area.

For example, in discussions that are often entered into about what is happening in China and India—we will debate China more specifically later—we often say, “These are the emerging economies and emerging powers and, of course, China is building so many more coal-fired power stations and its emissions are growing at a tremendous rate.” Yet somebody in India will say, “Yes, but let’s look at our population and let’s see what our emissions per capita are.” They will say that, in India, the emissions are approximately 2 tonnes per capita, whereas in this country they are well into double figures and in America they are probably 10 times what the average Indian would expend.

We have all entered into the negotiations at the UNFCCC from a position of national self-interest. Unless we understand that this is genuinely a boat in which we all either sink or float, we will not arrive at a resolution that is fair and has any chance of success.

Energy Bill [Lords]

Debate between Barry Gardiner and Luciana Berger

Wednesday 14th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Luciana Berger]

It is helpful at this point to refer to the Treasury levy cap, which has not yet been mentioned. We will not know for some time whether the Office for National Statistics will determine that the ECO should be considered in the same vein as the warm homes discount, the feed-in tariff and the renewable obligation. If it does, the ECO could be even more constricted and less than the figures that my hon. Friend is talking about.

[Barry Gardiner]

The shadow Minister is absolutely right that there has yet to be clarity on the issue, and clarity is vital. If we are to meet the targets that the Committee on Climate Change has set and the budgets, we must know that sufficient funds are available for the ECO to meet those targets. At present, my analysis and other analyses are quite clear that up to £22 billion is required, although an absolute cap of £1 billion might be provided under the ECO. As my hon. Friend suggests, that £1 billion might prove not to be a full £1 billion after all.

On new clause 9, the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change has estimated that the green deal will lead to employment in the sector increasing from 27,000 jobs currently to something approaching 250,000 jobs by 2020. That involves the creation of 27,875 jobs every year from the start of the green deal until 2020. Double the number of jobs that currently exist must be created every year. We heard earlier at Prime Minister’s Question Time about the latest unemployment figures and particularly the problems of youth unemployment. Of course, if those jobs were created, we would all welcome them, but there must be a doubt about these provisions.

In opposition, the Prime Minister called for a revolution in skills and training, so that the skills system responds far more effectively to the needs of individuals and businesses in a greener economy, but the recent green economy road map recognises the importance of that and refers to the introduction of new skills for a green economy and the grouping of sector skills councils to help businesses understand the changing skills requirement. It is crucial that that new grouping of sector skills councils supports the development of the additional 27,875 jobs every year between now and 2020. It would be of considerable interest to the House if the Minister explained what financial provision will be made to the sector skills councils to enable that sort of expansion—a tenfold expansion—to take place in the next nine years.

Energy Bill [Lords]

Debate between Barry Gardiner and Luciana Berger

Tuesday 10th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Barry Gardiner]

The virtue that the hon. Lady’s party usually claims for itself is that it adopts a hard-nosed business approach to things, so I offer her a hard-nosed business approach. If a householder were offered a deal at 9% over a period of 25 years, why would they take that up if they could take out exactly the same capital amount needed to fit the elements required to achieve the savings that the policy is designed to achieve but at the rate they are getting on their mortgage, which might be 4%, 5% or 6%? The simple point is that householders can already make the changes we are discussing at a lower cost than is offered in the green deal that her Government propose.

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

Has my hon. Friend seen the YouGov poll that was released today in which only 7% of the people polled said they would take up the green deal if the interest rate was set at 6% or more?

[Barry Gardiner]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I want to assure the Minister and all hon. Members present that I have no intention of talking the measures down. What I want is realism about their likelihood of success. Polls are polls—they are what people say about their future action, but I am not trying to present such evidence. I am simply asking hon. Members to look at what people are doing at the moment. They have the opportunity now to take out money on their mortgages and do exactly what the green deal is offering but at a lower rate of interest, and very few people are doing that. I do not want to talk this down, but I do want realism.

One has to look at this issue in the context of the Government’s overall policies. Of course, it is right that we should look at efficiency savings and energy reduction, but look at the cuts to the Carbon Trust: they do not sit easily with a Government policy of rigid focus on energy reduction. One of the premier schemes, which has been in place for a long time, is being cut. Look at the carbon reduction commitment—a very good scheme that was initiated a couple of years ago to incentivise businesses to lower their carbon emissions, which was welcomed by the CBI and the Institute of Directors. A billion-pound saving was going to be made and then recycled into those businesses. It was revenue neutral.

What did the Government do? They came in and said, “Thanks very much. We’ll have that billion pounds. We won’t recycle it into business.” They did two things: they destroyed the incentives that the businesses had in the first place to reduce their carbon footprint, and they also destroyed the trust that business had in the Government not changing the goalposts. One of fundamentals that we have heard throughout our debate today is the importance of maintaining a stable investment framework going forward. I appeal to the Government to think about everything they said in opposition about stable fiscal regimes and the need for certainty for business. Their actions in government have gone against that.

The hon. Member for South Suffolk (Mr Yeo), the Chair of the Energy and Climate Change Committee, made the point forcefully when he talked about the changes to the solar PV scheme. The important thing is not the changes themselves. It is understandable why those changes were made. The Government did not wish to see businesses profiting from the scheme that was intended primarily to be a domestic or small-scale scheme. That is not the issue. The issue is that they changed the goalposts and destroyed the confidence that business investors had in that area. That is what the Government are doing.

The Bill calls itself an Energy Bill. I am afraid that does not sit well with a coherent energy policy. If this were an Energy Bill, it would address energy much more in terms of electricity market reforms—again, those were referred to by the Chairman of the Select Committee. We should be looking at what sort of structure there is to the energy market in this country. We have a vertical integration of generator and supplier that is destroying the attempts to bring renewables into the mix, yet the four pillars of the Government’s proposals leave that market intact. It is not a reform of the electricity market; it is tinkering around the edges.

What is needed is a genuine reform of that market. That is what the Government are not doing. What is needed is a move to a pooled supply where it can be seen that companies are selling in a transparent and liquid market. At present it is an illiquid market which lacks transparency. That is why the big six are able to rip people off. The Government must do much more to claim that the Bill is an Energy Bill. They must have an energy policy, and the Bill shows that they do not. They are tinkering. Nero fiddled while Rome burned. The Government are fiddling while the planet does.