Climate Change: COP 26

Lord Birt Excerpts

Thursday 18th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Birt (CB)]

My Lords, COP 26 can, on balance, be counted a success. There were significant stumbles, most obviously on coal, but the global consensus was shifted, momentum was increased and the pressure on the laggard nations is now too intense to ignore.

But let us be open-eyed: the challenge for every nation to meet the 1.5-degree target is absolutely enormous, including for us. In the UK, around 60% of our emissions come from just two sources: heating buildings and transport. The Government’s White Paper on heating, issued last month, offers a really authoritative and impressive account of the challenge. It identifies that many of the possible solutions—for instance, hydrogen heating—are uncertain. Other critical technologies are as yet unproven, or their affordability is not yet at all clear.

Heat pumps are a proven technology, but they are far more expensive than carbon boilers, and they will not do their job without a massive and costly programme of home insulation. For them to work, it is not just roofs that need insulating but windows, walls and floors. Absent greater clarity on how the transition to decarbonised heat is to be incentivised and organised, the Government’s target to be able to install 600,000 heat pumps a year within six years appears unreachable at this moment.

The technology solutions for decarbonising transport are far clearer, but their implementation is also fraught with difficulties. A few months ago, I bought my first electric vehicle. The car is a dream, but the charging is an absolute nightmare. I have a charge point installed at home. On a fair number of occasions, our power supply has dipped below the required statutory voltage and automatically disabled our charge point. The following morning, ready for a long journey, I have found the battery close to flat and my journey stymied.

When you venture out on to the public charging networks, the nightmare continues. Many public charge points are simply not working, and you do not know that until you get there. In some areas, any car is able to park in front of a street charger and block it. There is no standardisation of payment systems, and only a minority allow contactless. Charging systems lack transparency on pricing. A multiplicity of apps and proprietary cards is needed if all charge points are to be accessed. There are different and incompatible sockets for fast chargers. Many charging spaces are unsuitable for drivers with disabilities or for vans.

In short, the charge-point system is a complete mess. There are currently 33 million cars in the UK, only 1 million of which are EVs. If we are to achieve our target of 12 million EVs by 2030, the Government rapidly need to bring order to this chaos. Unless and until EV drivers can soon enjoy an equivalent experience to those driving petrol and diesel vehicles, confidence in EVs will simply evaporate.

I do not for one moment underestimate the challenges for government of achieving net zero. But I do say to the Minister that, post Glasgow, the Government need to roll up their sleeves and concentrate not just on proclaiming what our or others’ net-zero targets are but on working out in granular detail just how we are going to achieve them.