Lord Lipsey (Lab):...Other noble Lords may find that helpful. I do
not find it helpful in selling this prospectus to people in the
future. I think it sounds too scary. It is not the case that if we
go above zero, there will be Armageddon. There is a set of
scenarios of possible temperature rises with a set of emissions. It
could be worse or better—scientists do not know precisely. So the
idea that we have to get rid of absolutely every particle of
emissions is crazy. Having taught people...Request free trial
(Lab):...Other noble Lords
may find that helpful. I do not find it helpful in selling this
prospectus to people in the future. I think it sounds too scary. It
is not the case that if we go above zero, there will be Armageddon.
There is a set of scenarios of possible temperature rises with a
set of emissions. It could be worse or better—scientists do not
know precisely. So the idea that we have to get rid of absolutely
every particle of emissions is crazy. Having taught people that
planting trees is a good thing to do, we cannot turn round and say
planting trees makes no difference whatever, because we cannot
plant enough in England. To spurn carbon capture and storage—one of
the major potential contributors to doing something about this—is
patently absurd. I also think the authors of the report are
extremely pessimistic about the potential for developing more forms
of electricity that are non-polluting, particularly nuclear. In
Sweden, a civilised country by any standards, virtually all
electricity is produced by nuclear reactors. That is a tremendous
leap forward which we too will need to make if electric
cars are to replace diesel cars, and so on...
(Lab):...We can do
much better than this if, without delay, we espouse a nuclear
future. I am surprised by the reticence of the report in this
connection, and by its failure to recognise some of the resulting
advantages, not least of which would be the ability to store
energy in the form of hydrogen. This could be generated by
electrolysis, if nuclear power was sufficiently abundant. The
storage of energy in hydrogen would overcome the problem of the
intermittence of renewable sources of power. Much of our transport
could be powered by hydrogen fuel cells, and the
two-tonne Tesla electric
car—of which a quarter of the weight comes from the
battery—would be seen as a white elephant...
(GP): My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, , for bringing
this important report to our attention. I agree with it on a couple
of key areas: we must not be misled by techno-optimism.
Techno-optimism leads us to think that we can have a
business-as-usual approach and just change the technology behind
it. It also suggests we can have a one-for-one replacement of
fossil-fuel cars with electric cars when, instead,
the vast bulk of the replacement has to come from walking, cycling
and good, affordable, reliable and convenient public
transport...
(Lab):...We have an even
greater problem with the movement of freight. We already have
electric cars, but electric trucks bringing
oranges from Spain are probably impossible at the moment. If they
were possible, the cost of manufacturing the equipment would be
very high. Cheaper rail fares and lower charges for rail freight
would be a good thing, and perhaps the Government would like to
follow the example of the German Government, who have just cut
access charges for rail freight by 10%. I hope the Government will
come up with some new policies on this before COP 26 in the
autumn...
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