The Climate Emergency

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Thursday 17th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Theresa Villiers]

We are already subject to rigorous legal obligations in relation to our carbon budgets, and we are showing real progress towards meeting them.

Our Environment Bill will mandate setting ambitious targets rooted in science. A powerful new independent watchdog will be created to hold the Government to account on meeting the targets that we set. From a free-to-use complaints system to the authority to instigate and undertake investigations and the power to take the Government to court if necessary, the new office for environmental protection will have real teeth.

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

I want to take the Secretary of State back to the Environment Bill for two seconds, because it is important to set targets but even more important to have deadlines for meeting them. She will be aware of concerns raised today that there is a major loophole in the Bill that will essentially give the Government nearly two decades to meet the legally binding future environmental targets. Will she comment on those concerns? It is all very well setting targets by 2022, but not having to meet them for 15 years seems absurd.

[Theresa Villiers]

I can reassure the hon. Lady by drawing her attention to clause 10, which provides for interim targets. The OEP will also have the authority to hold the Government to account on our progress towards meeting long-term targets.

Taking on board the recommendations of the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and of the Environmental Audit Committee, the Bill extends the OEP’s proposed remit to climate change. More than half the Bill’s measures will apply beyond England, helping the environment across our Union from Shetland to the Scilly Isles. Measures requiring developers to deliver a net gain for biodiversity will provide millions of pounds to boost nature and access to open green spaces.

--- Later in debate ---

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

There is so little time that I will just make one main point, and it is a very simple one: the Government should tell the truth on the climate crisis. Telling the truth on climate is one of the demands of Extinction Rebellion and the youth climate strikers. These are strange times indeed when telling the truth is a radical act, and yet on this issue, that is exactly what it is.

We could make a start by telling the truth about our climate record. Ministers regularly claim that greenhouse gas emissions have fallen in the UK by 42% since 1990. But that is not the whole truth, because the Government’s own figures show that if we calculate emissions based on consumption over the past 20 years, our emissions have fallen by just 10%. That is relevant to the comparison with China made by the right hon. Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon), completely overlooking the fact that many of China’s emissions are linked to producing goods that we then import. Of course, if we simply outsource our manufacturing, it is not surprising that our emissions appear to go down, but that is not a globally just and responsible attitude to emissions reduction.

What is more, historical reductions are no indicator of future progress. Coal is all but gone from the power sector, which means that the biggest source of reduction so far has now been exhausted, and there is little sign of the policy required to ensure that the necessary reductions continue.

The UK was the first member of the G7 to legislate for a net zero emissions target. I welcome that, of course, but other countries have more ambitious goals. Norway has committed to net zero by 2030, Finland by 2035, Iceland by 2040 and Sweden by 2045. My point is that 2050 is not global leadership. In an emergency, you do not dial 999 and ask for the emergency services to come in 30 years’ time; you want them to come now, because the emergency is now.

A target on its own does not bring down emissions—action does. What does the Committee on Climate Change say about the Government’s actual actions? In one of its most recent progress reports to Parliament, it states that

“actions to date have fallen short of what is needed for the previous targets and well short of those required for the net-zero target”.

The Government of course know it, because their own projections show that we do not have policy in place to meet the fourth and fifth carbon budgets and that the gap to meeting them is getting wider.

That matters not least because what is scientifically relevant is not just reaching net zero, but the amount of carbon emitted before we reach it. The most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimate of the available global carbon budget for a 66% chance of remaining within 1.5° of warming is 420 gigatonnes of CO₂. Professor Tim Jackson from the University of Surrey has estimated that the UK’s fair share of that remaining budget is just 2.5 gigatonnes. On current reduction trends, our production-based emissions will exceed our fair budget in 2026—in just seven years’ time. Using consumption-based accounting, which I have argued is a fairer way of doing it, we would actually exhaust our available budget in 2023—in just four years’ time. That means reaching net zero is not enough; we need deep carbon reductions in the next few years to stand a chance of staying within a safe and fair budget.

When the Government claim that they are acting with the required urgency, I think we need to bear in mind these stronger figures. When they say that they are going to bring forward action, we need to say that we need that action now. For example, they say they have a document on transport coming up, but we want action now: bring forward the ban on the sale of petrol cars and end aviation expansion now.