Climate

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd April 2019 Grand Committee

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, has rightly asked us whether we see this as an emergency, and I put my hand up and say, “It absolutely is”. With this particular emergency, as with many national emergencies, there are lots of down sides in that there are all sorts of negative consequences to war, threats or security. Today, however, I want to go through all the positive things that come out of genuinely calling this an emergency.

First, even in conventional terms, we have economic growth. As we saw during the 2008 recession, the green sector was one that grew in 2017—those are the most recent figures. GDP growth rose by some 1.8%, but economic growth in the green sector was something like 7%. There are more or less 250,000 jobs just in the green growth and energy efficiency sector.

Clean air is one of the consequences of decarbonisation; King’s College London estimates that in recent years there have been some 36,000 premature deaths per annum because of dirty air. There are 2.5 million households still in fuel poverty, yet through proper efficiency programmes and the housing stock, we could eventually reduce that to zero. That would also help winter deaths, of which there are some 50,000 per annum. Indeed, with heatwaves these days, it is estimated that in the last couple of years there have been some 600 to 900 deaths due to excess heat. Obviously, figures have been far higher on the continent, which may show what is still to come.

We can reduce fuel bills, not just by increasing the energy efficiency of the housing stock, but by renewable energy now being cheaper than fossil fuels. Because of all this increased welfare, I hope we can increase national welfare but also reduce costs on the National Health Service. By doing all this, we are making a major move towards a circular economy, which means that the planet can start to exist within its own finite resources.

To come back to climate finance, the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, rightly mentioned the decline of venture capital and the restriction on it in this sector. I was interested to hear those figures. Having said that, a huge amount of money wishes to invest, and it is about finding those opportunities; maybe government, through the public sector, can help that to happen. France has produced sovereign bonds, which have been at coupon rates that are less than standard ones. All this would also provide the UK with climate leadership again, which we are starting to miss.

I will ask the Minister only the following question. On 2 May, the climate change committee will produce its report on what we should do to achieve only a 1.5 degree centigrade increase—reckless though even that is. Will the Government accept the committee’s recommendations, whatever they are?