National Policy Statements (Energy)

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Monday 18th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Charles Hendry]

We all have to be very mindful of the situation in China. In the time it will take us to build one nuclear power station in this country, it will be building dozens. We have to understand the pressure that that creates for the construction process and the skills challenges. However, I have visited the hon. Gentleman’s constituency and have seen, along with him, the investment going into nuclear skills there, and more generally into the low-carbon economy, and I am very encouraged by what I have seen not only in Hartlepool, but in many other places around the country: businesses, councils, trade unions and others are working together to ensure we have the necessary skills to deliver the construction of plant.

This is not the time for explicit single-sector emissions caps. We recently set the level of the fourth carbon budget in line with the Committee on Climate Change recommendation. This amounts to a 50% reduction in emissions against 1990 levels for the period between 2023 and 2027. It would be wrong to introduce new planning conditions for one part of one sector in the national policy statements when we have already introduced legislation on emissions for all sectors together. Each technology-specific NPS sets out particular issues that apply. As the need case in the overarching NPS states, it is vital to have investment in clean fossil fuels to ensure that we have a secure supply of diverse energy generation.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

The Tyndall Centre has said that even the targets of the fourth carbon budget would provide only a 56% to 63% chance of avoiding a 2° C rise in average global temperatures. Is it not therefore the case that even the fourth carbon budget is not setting the right targets?

[Charles Hendry]

The hon. Lady knows what has happened. The Committee on Climate Change has made recommendations to us, and we have responded to them, and we were widely seen as one of the world leaders in this respect; the United Kingdom is well ahead of most other countries. It would be helpful if she would sometimes welcome the changes and the advances being made, rather than always saying it is not enough. It is appropriate to recognise in the course of these debates that Britain has shown real global leadership. There is cross-party agreement on that, and it should be welcomed.

The fossil fuels NPS—EN-2—explains what drives site selection for power plants and the practical requirements for carbon capture and storage. Together with relevant bits of EN-1, the EU emissions trading scheme and our own policies on an emissions performance standard, it will give developers confidence that there is a stable regime under which they can invest in the fossil-fuel generating stations that are necessary to provide the essential back-up for intermittent generation from some forms of renewable energy, or perform as low-carbon generators themselves, fitted with carbon capture and storage.

--- Later in debate ---

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

I am very happy to follow the earlier speeches of the hon. Member for Hove (Mike Weatherley) and, perhaps less surprisingly, the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood). I only wish that the latter and his colleagues were in a position to vote according to how they have spoken if there is a vote later this evening. Time is very short, and I wish to make just three points. One is about the overall targets in the national policy statements, one is about energy from waste, and I will finally say a few words about nuclear.

When I intervened on the Minister earlier about the overall emission reduction targets set out in the fourth carbon budget, I sensed a certain irritation that I kept standing up to make the point that although the targets were ambitious compared with other countries—I certainly give the Government that—they were not ambitious enough. I am sorry if that makes me a bit of a Cassandra in the House, but the Tyndall Centre, one of the foremost institutes on climate change in this country, states that the targets set out in the fourth carbon budget set us on course for having only a 60% likelihood of avoiding the 2° C temperature rise threshold. If I were to say to anybody in the House, “If you step on this aeroplane, it’s got only a 60% chance of reaching its destination safely”, the chances are they might just think twice before getting on the plane. It seems extraordinary. If any other area of Government policy was knowingly designed with such a low chance of success, we would be up in arms, so why are we not when it comes to the very survival of the planet?

Let us not forget that the 2° C threshold is not the distinction between acceptable climate change on the one hand and dangerous climate change on the other. It is the difference between dangerous climate change and very dangerous climate change. That is the lens through which I would like us to look at the national policy statements tonight.

I wish to make a brief point in support of the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr Havard), who rightly questioned the Government’s classification of incineration or energy from waste as a renewable energy source. Given that a significant amount of the material that goes into incinerators is not made from renewables, and that they can often emit at least a third more carbon dioxide than a modern gas-fired power station, it is hard to see quite why they are considered a renewable source.

Furthermore, massive new incinerators such as the one at Newhaven, near my constituency, lock local authorities into providing huge quantities of waste for very many years. The contracts last many years and, under them, a minimum amount of waste is required to feed the incinerators. We are therefore locked into the process, which inevitably discourages waste reduction, reuse and recycling efforts.

The final point that I wish to make is about nuclear. Nuclear power is unsafe, uneconomic and, more than anything else, simply unnecessary. We do not need it. Of the Government’s 17 possible pathways to delivering 80% CO₂ reductions by 2050, four include no energy from nuclear or coal by 2035. A recent report by WWF and others concluded that by 2050, it would be perfectly possible to generate 95% of global energy supplies from renewable sources alone. There would of course be a need for up-front investments to make the transition, in the order of 1% to 2% of global gross domestic product, but the report also found that that investment would turn into a positive cash flow after 2035, leading to a positive annual result of 2% of global GDP in 2050. In place of nuclear, renewables are quicker to deliver, can meet our energy demands and have a huge potential to boost the UK’s economy. There are far more green jobs in renewables than there ever are in fossil fuels.

It is not those of us who advocate renewables who are living in the dark ages. To the contrary, it is Members such as the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr Lilley), who seems not to know about such things as storing energy, European super-grids or the fact that we are talking not about one single energy source but about a whole range of renewable sources that, together, can provide the energy that we need if the political commitment and will is there. Nuclear energy is incredibly unsafe, as Fukushima has shown us, and massively expensive. More than ever, it simply is not needed. I call on hon. Members to consider that carefully when we hopefully come to vote on it later tonight.