Paris Climate Change Conference

David Mowat Excerpts

Thursday 19th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Helen Goodman]

I admire the hon. Lady for the energy she shows in this debate, but we have heard people in the sector say there is a problem—I will give a couple more examples—because 30,000 jobs are now being lost in small-scale solar and wind, which is very significant.

[David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)]

I want to go back to the point about gas and coal because it really is not good enough to leave it where we have. If the world did what we have done and removed coal from the system, it would be equivalent to increasing the current amount of renewables in the world by a factor of five. To pretend that that does not matter is to mislead us all.

[Helen Goodman]

It is good to remove coal—there is no contention about that—but it would be better to replace it with more solar and more wind. That is the simple proposition I am making.

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[David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband), who made an excellent speech. I regret to tell the House that I am the first speaker this afternoon who has not read the encyclical, but I shall be speaking specifically about the Paris agreement: what the objectives are; whether we appear to be on track to meet them, and, given that we are not, where the problem is; what structural issues in my view we need to address, which are similar to, but not the same as, the ones we have just heard; and what all that means for UK policy.

The objective of the Paris summit is the 2° limit. In objective terms, that means either 1,000 gigatonnes of carbon, or something like 550 parts per million of carbon. In truth, there are a lot of probabilities around that: we could meet the targets and still have more than a 2° increase; we could fail to meet them and get less. Nevertheless, those are the numbers we are dealing with. The right hon. Member for Doncaster North made the point that on current progress we will have reached 75% by 2030. A figure I prefer to use is that by 2036 it will have all gone: by 2036, our business-as-usual scenario will be finished.

Are we on track or not? A couple of Members have mentioned the intended nationally determined contributions. However, about only 80% of all participants in Paris have delivered them. The first problem with the INDCs—this is an indicator of the issues the Secretary of State will have to face—is that we could not even agree a common benchmark or starting point for the INDCs. The Europeans prefer 1990 and the Americans prefer 2005. We both have our own reasons: they make us look better.

It is not surprising, given that we could not agree a benchmark or common template, that the INDCs, 80% of which are now in, are all over the place. The right hon. Member for Doncaster North said they implied a 3° outcome. I find this surprising. A report by the secretariat of the United Nations framework convention on climate change mentioned 2.73°. This is an optimistic analysis—that is unusual as these guys are usually over-pessimistic—because it assumes we will continue on broadly the same trajectory after the initial INDC period. That will be hard, however, because there are low-hanging fruit and it will be easier to make progress on the first things. The other key points are that we need five-year reviews and that only the EU and China have put in place policies reflecting their INDCs, suggesting that regulating the process might be harder than we think.

Where is the problem? It is not the UK. The Climate Change Act mandates an 80% reduction in emissions over 60 years: a rate of 1.33% a year, which is significantly higher than the EU INDC in Paris. I would like a Front-Bench spokesperson to contradict me if I am wrong, because it is an important point. The Act commits the UK to an emissions target 33% higher than the EU INDC submission, of which we are part. That is an extraordinary statistic. With our policies—the carbon budgets and everything that goes with them—we have imposed on ourselves requirements more stringent than those set by the EU as a whole, let alone individual member states. I do not agree with the right hon. Gentleman that other countries have passed climate change Acts. If only they had! We expected they would—we thought we were taking a worldwide position—but it has not happened to anything like the extent we hoped it would. I note that neither Front-Bench team has intervened, so I think I am right.

The INDC we submitted to Paris requires a 40% emissions reduction by 2030, which is significantly less than we are legally obliged to achieve in the UK. How are some of our European partners getting on? There is a database called the Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research—EDGAR—and it is a rattling good yarn. It details carbon emissions by country, capita and unit of GDP for every year up to 2013. Since 1990, Austria, a wealthy European country, has increased its emissions by 20%, while we have reduced ours by 20%, in accordance with the Climate Change Act. That is the same country, by the way, that is suing us for building nuclear power stations. Holland and Belgium are flat. Germany has reduced its emissions, but, in spite of being a leader on renewables, its emissions are 30% higher than ours per capita. That is because it is going heavily for coal, and what makes the difference on emissions is not how many renewables a country has, but how much coal it does not have. We need to examine that. That is a slightly pessimistic analysis of the INDCs—I know we are going to negotiate—but I wanted to make the point that the European submission to Paris is 33% lower than what this Parliament has already mandated for this country. I wonder why that is.

What is causing this apparent possibility of failure? There is actually one piece of good news from the last few years. I am pleasantly surprised that we appear to have broken the link between GDP and energy intensity. The only caveat is the issue that dare not speak its name: embedded carbon. If we have broken the link only by importing carbon in the form of embedded carbon, we will have undermined much of what we are doing.

A bigger issue concerns an error that was made before and at Copenhagen and by the EU, and one that we are still making—I heard it in DECC questions again today: we have tended to over-emphasise renewables targets and under-emphasise decarbonisation, yet for too long we have used those words interchangeably. I am in favour of renewables, but because all the EU targets were for renewables, not decarbonisation, we placed a false emphasis on certain technologies. In particular, we did not develop nuclear power and carbon capture and storage as quickly as we should have. That error is still being made. This morning, I received a document from Friends of the Earth in preparation for this debate. It cannot bring itself to use the words “nuclear power” in this context. I can only conclude that although it cares about climate change, it does not care enough to countenance the dominant technology that is by far the best chance the world has.

[Caroline Lucas]

Those of us who are deeply sceptical about nuclear power are not sceptical for ideological reasons. Nuclear is slow and deeply expensive. We need to reduce our emissions quickly, but the next nuclear power stations will not be on grid for at least another 10 years. It is an issue of speed and cost, as well as ideology.

[David Mowat]

As an advocate of nuclear power, I accept we have not solved the waste issue, but it is one that the human race is capable of solving, whereas I am not certain that climate change is. And I do not agree with the hon. Lady’s point about cost.

Returning to the coal and gas debate, another issue is that we confuse post-2030 emissions pathways with the cumulative impact. The gigatonne target is a cumulative one. The effect of carbon and burning coal is cumulative. It is not just about post-2030 pathways or saying that gas has to be an interim energy source. In an intervention earlier, I made the point that were we able to replace all the coal in the world with gas—just like that—it would have the same effect as a fivefold increase in the level of renewable energy. We all ought to think about that statistic. This is not just about renewables. Of course they are vital, but we have to use other technologies, such as nuclear and CCS. The Copenhagen analysis and the EU’s approach have focused too heavily on renewables and not enough on decarbonisation, so I am pleased we appear to be fixing that now.

In that regard, I would make one final point. I have mentioned Austria and—to an extent—Germany as countries that are doing badly, but one country in Europe is a shining example: France has the lowest emissions, the lowest emissions pathway and the lowest level of emissions per capita and GDP, and that is because it is 80% nuclear. There is an emperor’s new clothes element to this. I wish we could be where France is.

What does all this mean for the UK? We have our Climate Change Act, and next Thursday we will get the next ratchet of that. We have to be careful that we do not act unilaterally—I have bought into all this stuff—and do not take a worldwide leadership position for a world that does not wish to or will not be led. That is why Paris is so important and why, for me, it is so disappointing that the EU submission to Paris is so unambitious vis-à-vis our Climate Change Act. The issues of fuel poverty will not be resolved by having the highest electricity prices in the world. I mentioned earlier in DECC questions that a number of EU leaders had sent the Secretary of State texts congratulating her on her announcement yesterday about removing coal from the system and replacing it with gas. I would just say that texts are no substitute for action by some of those countries. I am sure she will be telling them that in Paris, and I wish her luck.

[Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)]

Climate change is the biggest challenge that any of us or any future generations will face. It is absolutely right that the House should be given the opportunity to debate this important issue, particularly with Paris just a couple of weeks away. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for giving us time to debate this subject. I shall confine my remarks almost entirely to the domestic issues and the Government’s policy on renewable energy and its impact on Britain’s CO₂ reduction targets, but also on jobs more widely and the UK’s reputation going into the Paris conference.

As we have already heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman), thanks to the information we received via a leaked letter from the Energy Secretary, we now know that Britain is likely to miss our 2020 target of 15% of energy production from renewables by some margin, in all likelihood reaching just 11%. That compares to Germany, which already produces 31% of its energy from renewables. As we have also heard, the cheapest renewable energy by far is onshore wind. It is so cost-effective that it no longer needs any subsidy, but as we have also heard, it has been virtually stopped in its tracks in England by the Government’s planning changes.

Now the Government are proposing to abandon support for solar almost completely, in spite of the growing scientific and political consensus around the world that it holds the secret to our future carbon-free energy needs. The proposed cut in solar feed-in tariffs by a staggering 87% from 1 January will devastate our fledging solar industry and make meeting the legally binding target of 15% by 2020 far more difficult. At the same time, the Government are announcing huge subsidies for nuclear, gas and highly polluting diesel generators. How can that make sense?

We now face a situation in which in a couple of years’ time, renewables could be the only sector not to receive any subsidy. There is also the impact on jobs, our economy and our science base. Our solar industry alone provides 35,000 jobs, including nearly 4,000 in the south-west of England. We face losing 27,000 of those jobs nationally, including more than 3,000 in the south-west, if the proposal goes ahead unaltered. That figure is similar to—indeed, higher than—the job losses recently announced in the steel industry, but these jobs have a far lower profile because they are at small companies, they are scattered all over the country and they do not have a loud enough political voice. The irony is that by 2020 our solar industry could be operating subsidy-free. Indeed, the sector itself acknowledges the common sense in reducing the feed-in tariff, but it believes it should be done in a tapered way, not with a cliff edge, as is currently proposed. As my hon. Friend said, jobs are already being lost because of the uncertainty. We had the announcement of another 35 job losses in Exeter this week alone.

I would like to say a little about the situation facing hundreds of community renewable energy projects up and down the country in the light of recent announcements of changes to the way in which tax relief is administered. As hon. Members will remember, that was announced without any consultation on Third Reading of the Finance Act 2015 at the end of October and is to take effect at the end of this month—just one month’s notice. This, I am afraid, is a disgrace. Those renewable energy schemes at community level get off the ground as the result of the blood, sweat and tears—often over years—of thousands of ordinary, civic-minded citizens, who have now had the rug pulled from under them.

My community energy project in Exeter has been working tirelessly for more than two years preparing its share offer, but it had to rush it out this week, before it was really ready, in order to beat the loss of tax relief at the end of the month. The project has, heroically, managed to raise more than a quarter of the funds it needs, but raising the rest will be much more difficult without the tax reliefs, which have suddenly been taken away. Community Energy England estimates that £127 million of current investment and £242 million of potential future investment is at risk from the decision. When the Secretary of State responds, I would like to know whether she or her fellow Minister were consulted on the change, and if not, why not? If they were, why did they agree to it? I understand that the community energy sector feels so angry and betrayed by the decision that it is considering taking legal action, and I am sure there are many people in this House and outside who would support that.

The Secretary of State asserted earlier in departmental questions that she believed that Britain under the current Government had maintained its leadership role and its international reputation on climate change, but in that case why has Ernst & Young dropped the United Kingdom from the top 10 countries for renewable energy attractiveness? Why did the UN chief environment scientist, Jacquie McGlade, say recently on the BBC that it was

“disappointing…when we see countries such as the United Kingdom that have really been in the lead in terms of getting their renewable energy up and going—we see subsidies being withdrawn and the fossil fuel industry being enhanced”?

She went on to say that she thought Britain was sending a worrying signal in the run-up to Paris by shifting away from clean energy just when the rest of the world was rushing towards it.

[David Mowat]

I made the point earlier that one of the issues we face is that we confuse decarbonisation with renewables, and I think many of the right hon. Gentleman’s remarks are along those lines. He talked earlier about Germany, which has 34% renewables but very high emissions because it is building coal-powered stations. The Government’s position is to reduce carbon, but not just by using renewables.

[Mr Bradshaw]

I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman: it is not an either/or. What he says about Germany is absolutely right and is due in large part to the, in my view, unusually foolish policy decision by the Merkel Government to withdraw from nuclear. Germany is paying a high price for that, and it is a very good lesson to those of us who advocate an anti-nuclear policy.

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[Rebecca Pow]

I am not going to disagree with that, but it is again no reason for not doing something. That is historic, and we did not have all the science at that time. We do have the science now, which is why we are going to move forward.

[David Mowat]

The hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) is quite right that the UK is more responsible than Indonesia, but that is why it is disappointing that Germany is building brand-new coal-fired power stations, as in Holland. The point about Indonesia is right; it does not apply to Germany. While we are on the subject of coal, we need to understand that the world is still increasing its use of coal in absolute terms at a faster rate than its use of renewables.

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank my hon. Friend for that valuable intervention. While we are talking about the best kinds of energy that we should use, it is of course important to mention nuclear energy, which is another crucial part of our clean energy strategy. I mention it in particular because Hinkley C is on my doorstep and it will have a massive knock-on effect on Taunton Deane. It is the first new nuclear power station that we have built for 20 years. This is low carbon energy, and it will provide 7% of our energy requirements and keep the lights on for 6 million homes. It is so important as the baseload of non-fossil fuel energy.

The right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw), who is almost a parliamentary neighbour, was talking about jobs lost in the renewables sector, but 25,000 jobs should be created with the development of Hinkley C, and 5,000 of them are going to be in Somerset. Hinkley C will spawn a raft of low carbon technologies, which are already starting up. That is very positive and heartening, and we should raise the flag, because this is the direction in which we should be going. Moreover, this power station is largely fuelled by private investment, which we must encourage, because we cannot keep demanding that the state supply everything. It is a model for the way forward, and I have high hopes that it will be used as a model for other nuclear power stations built in this country.

We have made progress on renewables, although things are changing slightly at the moment. It is welcome that 16% of our energy comes from renewables, and that £42 billion has been invested in renewable energy so far. Yes, the tariffs are changing, but the Secretary of State is considering what to do about solar companies that are in that “in-between” phase. We are continuing to encourage the use of offshore wind, which is a valuable addition to our energy supplies. However, in developing what I would describe as a new model for energy production in the UK, we must ensure that it does not damage the environment. As I said earlier, it must be sustainable. It must also be affordable, involving the lowest possible cost to the taxpayer. We must meet the Government’s fuel poverty targets, and we must do so at a time when the country is still in debt. The Pope was at pains to point out that energy costs must not penalise the poor and the vulnerable.

Given that we are getting hot under the collar, this is an appropriate moment at which to mention heat. A third of our emissions in the UK result from the inefficient use and waste of heat. I have spoken to the Secretary of State about the issue, and she assures me that the Department will look into it. It is a difficult issue to deal with, and it is expensive, but it is essential that we tackle it at a later stage. Decarbonising heat from buildings will definitely help us to close the carbon gap. Local authorities could work with low carbon roadmaps. The development of zero-carbon homes—which we should encourage when it is possible—and of more localised heating systems, such as district heating systems, will also help us to cut our emissions and secure higher energy efficiency, lower carbon emissions and less climate-warming.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rebecca Pow]

That is a good point, although China’s population is already falling, and we hope that it will continue to fall. We have to advise other countries, which is why Paris is so important. We must set the trend, and explain why it is important for others to buy into this.

[David Mowat]

It is interesting to note that China’s emissions per capita are the same as ours this year. I know that that does not detract from the point about embedded carbon, but it is interesting none the less.

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention.

Trees have been mentioned only briefly, but I am a great tree person, and I must speak up for them. We must encourage partnerships to reduce deforestation. We need to work with countries such as Brazil to stop the cutting down of rain forests, which is the single largest contributor to the release of carbon. Reducing cutting will have an enormous impact on climate change, and will also maintain our biodiversity—and placing a value on the benefits of biodiversity is part and parcel of the climate change debate. In that context, I am pleased that the Government are now talking about the importance of nature capital. Maintaining tree cover, whether it is done in Brazil or elsewhere in the world—including on the Somerset levels—will reduce flooding and soil erosion, aid soil maintenance, and give us cleaner water.

The Pope has called for increased action. We should bear in mind that not everything can be achieved in a stuffy room in Paris; a lot can be done there, but we in the House can do a lot as well.