Energy Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2022-07-19
Topic: Environment
Jennifer Jones (Green Party, Left): My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott. I agree with everything she said. My noble friend Lady Bennett of Manor Castle suggested that I would sum up other people, but she has done a better job of it than I could, so I am just going to rant about the Bill The Minister said in his opening remarks something about the weather. Of course, this is an extraordinary day for us to be debating this Energy Bill. The temperature when I came into the Chamber was 40.2 degrees at Heathrow, and it is quite possibly higher now. It is highest UK temperature ever recorded, and possibly not the highest this year or in many years to come. The roads are melting, outdoor workers cannot do their jobs and London is on fire. I do not know whether the Minister has seen pictures of the fires in London that the fire brigade is tackling at the moment Then there are the buses that our Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, put on the roads, which I said at the time were inadequate. They have terrible ventilation, and now they are stifling ovens. I invite noble Lords opposite to go and test one today and see what they think about them. They will find them extremely unpleasant Yesterday, the High Court ruled that, as many of us have said for so long, the Government’s climate plans are barely worth the paper they are written on. The High Court ruled that the strategy was "inadequate and unlawful". That is quite strong language. What were the Tory leadership hopefuls promising until Alok Sharma, bless him, forced them to acknowledge previous government commitments? They were promising to rip up our net-zero targets so that we can cut taxes for the rich. It is incredible that they think that that will win them the general election at some point Clearly, the 2050 net-zero target is too little too late to keep the 1.5 degrees centigrade goal alive, and even then, the Government look set to miss it. The Bill could have been an opportunity to correct course and get the country on track to meet the targets, but the Government miss the mark again and again. We must limit our greenhouse gas emissions to no more than the UK’s proportionate share of the global carbon budget. This emissions reduction has to be done as rapidly as possible. Yes, there are costs, but they are nothing compared to the costs of inaction and delay This transition must include an end to exploration, extraction and the trade in fossil fuels. As other noble Lords have mentioned, the Government talk of gas as a transition fuel. Although I reject this argument, if the Government truly believe it, they should put this transition status in the Bill, with a legally binding pathway to phase out gas entirely. However, they have plans for new UK oil, gas and even coal extraction. None of this is sustainable; none of it is transitionary. It is all damaging, destructive, and dooms any hope of keeping 1.5 alive. Then there is the other energy source that is described as a panacea, as the future: nuclear. We hear of small nuclear reactors, thorium reactors, nuclear fusion; a never-ending wish list of science-fiction solutions to the very real crises that we face. I call it science fiction; my noble friend called it magical maths—I think I prefer that. Magical maths: that is what the Government keep trying to do. Of course, as with magic, it is not real—let us face it. Today we heard about "jet zero". I give it 10 out of 10 for the label, but minus 10 out of 10 for the concept of making aviation net zero The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, mentioned energy from waste. I am sympathetic to that, but we have found that when we have incinerators, recycling rates go down. The councils have a commitment to deliver a certain amount of waste to the incinerator companies, but they cannot supply all that waste because people are reducing—