Asked by
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of
the report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,
published on 9 August; and what policy areas they intend to
reassess in response to the finding that global temperatures are
rising faster and will have worse consequences than previously
predicted.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for
Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy () (Con)
The IPCC report reaffirms the importance of net zero. On 19
October, we launched the net-zero strategy, supporting up to
440,000 jobs and leveraging up to £90 billion in private
investment by 2030. Our strategy sets out clear policies and
proposals for keeping us on track for our coming carbon budgets
and our ambitious NDC.
(GP)
How on earth does that and the Government’s net-zero plan fit
with the fact that the Chancellor has just given us a Budget that
is so carbon intensive that we should all just give up everything
that we are bothering to do? He has reduced the duty on domestic
flights, which are the most carbon-intensive form of travel, and
he has frozen the fuel-duty escalator for the 12th year. This
Treasury does not understand the climate emergency, and the noble
Lord, who hears us all here, has to take that back.
(Con)
Of course I always take the noble Baroness’s comments back to the
department for discussion, as she well knows. I think that she is
being a little unfair with her comments and I know that she would
not want to be. The Chancellor has also announced £3.8
billion-worth of funding for domestic low-carbon heat
installation systems, social housing decarbonisation and public
sector decarbonisation—we talked about that in our statement a
few days ago. It is important to bear in mind that many
communities in the UK—people who live on remote islands et
cetera—rely on their air services. Domestic aviation accounts for
less than 1% of UK emissions. I also remind the noble Baroness
that the Chancellor recently announced considerable
funding—something like £180 million—for sustainable aviation
fuel.
(Lab)
My Lords, working with the devolved Administrations, could the
Minister indicate what new policy proposals the Government will
bring to COP 26 next week, in respect of financial innovation,
green finance and technology, to ensure that a comprehensive
scheme of carbon capture is in place to assist with climate
change mitigation by the Government’s 2030 target, over and above
the Budget today, which was rather limited in this respect?
(Con)
Some noble Members opposite have obviously listened to a
different Budget from the one that was actually announced. We
have £1 billion-worth of funding for carbon capture, usage and
storage proposals. The noble Baroness will be aware that, only
the other day, we announced the first two clusters in north-west
and north-east England. These are world-leading, exciting
proposals; no one else in the world is being as ambitious as we
are on CCUS.
(LD)
My Lords, returning to the issue of domestic air passenger duty,
does the Minister recognise that short-haul flights are the most
carbon-intensive form of travel? Ahead of COP 26, what signal
does the Minister believe it sends to announce a cut to domestic
air passenger duty while presiding over a record rise in rail
fares—one of the least carbon-intensive forms of travel?
(Con)
I refer the noble Lord to the answer that I just gave to the
noble Baroness, Lady Jones. Many communities in the United
Kingdom rely on air travel for international and internal
connectivity. Some parts of our nation are islands, separated by
water that trains do not go across. Therefore, it is important to
retain connectivity. At the same time, the Chancellor also
announced an increase in long-haul air passenger duty.
(Con)
Is not the premise of the noble Baroness’s Question—namely, that
global temperatures are rising faster than previously
predicted—the reverse of the truth? When the IPCC was
established, it forecast that over the ensuing 30 years, now
complete, the global temperature would rise by 0.3 degrees per
decade. In fact, it has risen by just 0.17 degrees per
decade—barely half that amount—and all 39 models used by the IPCC
produce estimates higher than reality. Reality is actually quite
reassuring.
Noble Lords
Oh!
(Con)
I can see that the noble Lord has the House with him on that one.
Even putting aside his scepticism about the accuracy of the IPCC
report, surely even he would agree that, given the current spike
in gas prices, for instance, it is a good thing to reduce our
usage of carbon-intensive fuels. If we can generate more
electricity domestically in a renewable and green way, that has
to be a good thing because it reduces our reliance on
importation.
(Lab) [V]
My Lords, can we park the constant sideline bickering over
China’s CO2 emissions? The discussion pre-COP 26 is unbalanced.
We hear endless criticism of China for its 6.5 tonnes per capita
emissions record, while there is a deafening silence over the
record of the English-speaking world of Australia, Canada and
America with their average emissions of 15 tonnes per capita—two
and a half times those of China. The China bashing needs to stop.
No wonder it may not attend COP 26.
(Con)
I am sorry, but I just do not agree with the noble Lord. China is
responsible for one of the largest emissions totals in the world.
This is very much a global problem and, if we are to make any
progress, every nation has to make its contribution, including
not only the English-speaking world but also China.
(Con)
Can my noble friend say whether any of the pumps that are being
suggested to substitute for gas boilers in our homes are yet in a
state to be widely used?
(Con)
I can reassure my noble and learned friend on that basis. Heat
pumps are a mature heating technology and currently the
market-leading low-carbon option. I am also delighted to tell him
that the largest UK manufacturer, Mitsubishi in Scotland,
produces 10,000 of them a year.
(LD)
My Lords, the unpredicted intensity of freak events such as the
heat dome in the US and Canada has left scientists reeling.
Oceanographers are monitoring with concern the anomaly in the
Gulf Stream, which helps to regulate our world’s weather, and the
cold spot south-east of Greenland is particularly worrying. Does
the Minister accept that it is time to stop dicing with the
future of our planet, to keep fossil fuels in the ground and
therefore to ditch the abominable policy that places a legal duty
on our Government to extract every last drop of oil from the
North Sea?
(Con)
The Committee on Climate Change has made it clear that we still
need fossil fuels for the transition. I remind the noble Baroness
that the UK is responsible for only 1% of worldwide emissions.
Yes, we must do our bit, which we are—we are a world-leading
power in that respect—but we also need to work on a worldwide
basis with other nations, because just stopping emissions in the
United Kingdom will not solve the problem.
(Lab)
My Lords, the Government had four key objectives for the summit
next week in Glasgow. The third of those, and the one that was in
many ways among the most important because of the failure to
deliver it over the past decade, was the objective on finance and
delivering $100 billion per annum of support for those developing
countries that would miss out as a result of moving towards net
zero. The Government have admitted this week, in advance of the
summit, that that objective is not going to be met. Does the
Minister agree that one reason for that might just be the fact
that our Government—our country—withdrew on their commitments to
the world’s poorest people this year and that that might just
have affected the atmosphere around decision-making and the
commitments that might then be made by others?
(Con)
No, I do not accept that, because the UK, even after the recent
reduction, still has one of the largest international climate
finance facilities in the world. Again, on international finance,
we are world-leading as well. It was an immense diplomatic effort
to get many other nations on board—credit goes to the Prime
Minister and to for managing to do that. We
have got the commitment, albeit maybe not as early as we would
have hoped for, from 2023.
(Non-Afl)
What is the target date for the Minister’s own departmental
buildings to be carbon neutral?
(Con)
As the noble Lord is probably well aware, under the heat and
buildings strategy, another of the Chancellor’s announcements
last week, we have allocated hundreds of millions of pounds to
the public sector decarbonisation scheme to go with the £1
billion that we have already spent in the past year on the PSDS.
I could point the noble Lord to numerous examples across the
country, both in London and elsewhere, of excellent schemes where
the public sector is using these funds to deliver meaningful
carbon reductions.
(Lab Co-op)
The Minister mentioned the carbon capture and storage facilities
that have been approved. He will also be aware that the one that
was most ready to go ahead is at St Fergus in Aberdeenshire, but
that was not given approval. Why? Are the Government deliberately
setting out to upset Scotland and the Scottish Executive?
(Con)
I think that the noble Lord knows the answer to his own question.
A rigorous process was gone through to determine which schemes
should get the go-ahead. It is not true that the scheme to which
he referred was the most advanced. An independent panel of
experts studied all the bids. It is not the case that we are not
going ahead with the scheme; it is on the reserve list. It will
almost certainly proceed, but just not in the first wave.
