Energy Bill

Lord Smith of Finsbury Excerpts

Monday 28th October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Ridley]

My Lords, I will try to be brief. There has been no increase in sea surface temperatures over the past 10 years or so. The noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, says that shale gas does not provide an excuse to rethink this target, but the shale gas break-even price has come down dramatically in the United States as a result of increased experience of how to develop shale gas. Fields that were once thought to be break even at $6, $8 or $9 are now breaking even at $3, $4 or $5. Then if you add gas liquids—some fields have gas liquids and they are much higher value—and so on, it is very possible that we will see shale gas have the same effect on prices in this country as we saw in the United States.

I feel we must retain flexibility to research low-carbon technologies, to explore the possibilities of solar, carbon capture and storage and other forms of nuclear and, above all, to see what shale gas can do, but we should not lock in an expensive target now.

[Lord Smith of Finsbury (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I support the noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, and Amendments 1 and 2. At the heart of this debate is the question of why decarbonisation is important. As the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, said, it sits at the heart of the Government’s Bill, and the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, seeks to strengthen the position of decarbonisation at the heart of energy policy. The noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, told us that climate change is happening more slowly than expected. He justified that with some somewhat selective pickings from the fifth report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The reality of that report is that its overwhelming conclusion is that the atmosphere and the oceans have warmed, the amounts of snow and ice have diminished and are continuing to diminish, sea level has risen and each of the past three decades has been successively warmer at the earth’s surface than any preceding decade since 1850.

Climate change is real and is happening. I wish the noble Viscount were right. I wish that it was not happening. I take no pleasure whatever in the fact that it is.

[Viscount Ridley]

My Lords, did I say that it was not happening? Everything that the noble Lord, Lord Smith, has said about what has happened, I completely accept, but it does not say that it is happening faster than expected.

[Lord Smith of Finsbury]

It is rather good to have on the record the noble Viscount’s opinion that climate change has been happening, and I have to say to him that it is a process that it is continuing.

I am the chairman of the Environment Agency in England. We are already seeing increasingly erratic and extreme patterns of weather here in the UK. Last year, in 2012, the first three months saw us in near drought. That was followed by 11 serious flooding events during the summer and autumn. In March, the River South Tyne was flowing at 28% of its average flow for that time of year; by June, two months later, it was running at 408% of its average flow for that time of year. I cannot say that the erratic weather patterns that we are now increasingly seeing in the UK are directly attributable to climate change, but I can say that this is precisely the sort of effect that climate science tells us we are going to see an awful lot more of over coming decades unless we do something serious about decarbonisation.

It looks as if we are heading for at least a 2 degree rise in global temperatures, and probably more, and the consequences of that for flooding, water supplies, agriculture, movement of population and human health are incalculable. Therefore, it is important for all of us to do what we can to take carbon out of our activities. Decarbonising energy production over the next 20 years is not just a “nice to have”, a luxury, or something to be thrown aside the first moment that some flak appears; it is essential if we are going to have anything remotely resembling a coherent and sustainable energy policy in the future.

A decarbonisation target is not just important because of climate change; it is essential in order to give confidence and certainty to the burgeoning renewables and energy efficiency industries. Putting clear targets in place will stimulate innovation and enable long-term investment and planning to take place. Energy, perhaps more than any other field of government policy, needs long-term thinking and, if at all possible, cross-party thinking, too. We have to put the parameters in place and make the target clear but achievable, then the ideas, investment, work and economic benefits will flow. The amendment of my noble friend Lord Oxburgh seeks to do precisely these things and I fully support it.