Pensions: Low-carbon Investments

Lord Hunt of Chesterton Excerpts

Thursday 20th March 2014 Grand Committee

[Lord Hunt of Chesterton (Lab)]

My Lords, I understand that I can speak in the gap, but there is no gap.

The City of London is clearly studying the fact that all the reserves of coal and oil in the ground cannot all be used if we are to meet our objectives. The question then is: will there be government compensation for these false investments? Probably not, but there could be different ways of using this material in the ground. As the noble Lord, Lord Giddens, has been saying, you can use gas from fracking providing that you do not subsidise the water clean-up like the United States. This may be better than burning the coal but, as Shell used to say 15 years ago, if you can change the coal in the ground you can turn it into a different kind of carbon fuel with much fewer emissions.

There are many strategies as you go from existing reserves to energy and they need to be discussed. It is not just suddenly turning off these reserves: they can be used in a variety of ways. This is the important point in any strategy.