Durban Climate Change Conference
Debate between Chris Huhne and Jeremy Lefroy
Chris Huhne
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her question. Action is the most important ultimate benchmark of what we do, but I urge her not to underestimate the importance of knowledge in informing action. One of the key gaps that we need to fill in this area is regular reporting and attention on the gap between what we are doing and what we need to do to hold the global temperature rise to within 2°, beneath the level that would create dangerous climate change. I have had discussions not only with Marcin Korolec, the Environment Minister of Poland, which currently holds the presidency of the Council of the European Union, but with Martin Lidegaard, the Energy and Climate Change Minister of Denmark, which will hold the presidency for the first half of next year. I had good conversations with him in Durban and am confident that the Danes will bring forward some clear time within the Council to ensure that we make real progress towards some of the key staging posts in reaching 30%. Perhaps most progress will be made on the energy efficiency directive, because it should be relatively easy to agree and we know that energy efficiency measures tend to have benefits outright. We are thinking about how to do that and I hope that the European Union will be able to move forward on domestic action in the first six months of next year.
Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)
I thank my right hon. Friend and his team for their work. What does he intend to do to encourage other countries to sign up to the green climate fund and follow the UK’s lead?
Annual Energy Statement
Debate between Chris Huhne and Jeremy Lefroy
Chris Huhne
The hon. Lady raises an interesting point. The need for new investment is clearly factored into the price projections in the documentation. It is not just about the rise in the overall world price in gas that is driving what is happening to our bills but the need to build a quarter of the capacity that is coming offline. That is factored into the calculations.
Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)
Has my right hon. Friend had the opportunity to look at how other countries, particularly Germany, support their high intensity manufacturing users of energy to keep bills down and jobs in the country?
Chris Huhne
My hon. Friend will know that my esteemed colleague, the Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change, the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker), was there in September. We have done considerable work to look at the experience of other countries, which is a theme that we might come back to in the debate on the solar feed-in tariff. This Government do not believe that it is sensible to sit in a room and try to develop things from scratch and a priori if other countries have already done so and we can learn the lessons from them.
Annual Energy Statement
Debate between Chris Huhne and Jeremy Lefroy
Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)
As my right hon. Friend knows, the energy-intensive industries in my constituency, such as ceramics and aluminium, which have already achieved great efficiencies over the past 10 years, are very concerned about the impact of the new carbon trading rules that are due to be introduced in a couple of years. Will he assure us that the rules will not result in production and jobs simply moving overseas to jurisdictions that do not take carbon emissions as seriously as we do in this country?
Chris Huhne
Both the Department and the European Commission have looked closely at those competitiveness issues, and we feel confident that a range of measures, such as free allocation when it comes to the emissions trading scheme, can deal with those problems. We should remember that there are substantial transport costs, which provide some protection, and I believe that the industries concerned have a healthy future.