Climate Change Act 2008 (2050 Target Amendment) Order 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-06-26
Topic: Environment
Bernard Donoughue (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I declare my interests as in the register. This massive proposal, which is imaginative and exciting in many ways, is being rushed through Parliament, partly because the departing Prime Minister has a desire for a legacy and partly because of the claimed emergency over climate change or global warming. I am in the minority as I was rather sympathetic to the Prime Minister on many things—but not on this issue On the latter issue, warming, we have certainly experienced a mild warming cycle for some 140 years, with carbon emissions playing a significant role in it. I have never questioned that. I listened carefully to the noble Lord, Lord Turner, but I cannot find any sudden acceleration. According to Met Office figures, the past 20 years show a rise of 0.3%, which is broadly in line with the whole cycle. It is slightly slower than the further warming in the last quarter of the 20th century, so it is of concern, but it is not a sudden emergency The excitement occurring now may arise from the forecasts by models of a boiling planet later this century. That may happen—anything may happen—and I understand people who want assurance, but so far there is no observational scientific evidence for it. Nearly all those models—there are more than 100 of them—have been deeply inaccurate so far and have been seriously biased towards overheating, sometimes by up to 300%. Interestingly, only the Russian model has been accurate for this syndrome, so these models should be treated with care There has quite rightly been much discussion of costs. The climate change committee’s prediction of a net benefit cost of £50 billion per annum by 2050 may be optimistic. Other outside estimates reject it; the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy puts the cost 40% higher, at £70 billion per annum. That was quoted by the Chancellor in his letter to the Prime Minister. All seem to agree that the total expenditure by 2050 will be more than £1 trillion. That seems testing. The committee’s figures seem to omit carbon taxes and renewable subsidies, amounting to around £1 trillion, and the decarbonising of heat by refurbishing all houses. I should point out that that figure was from a respectable sectoral energy institute, which is why it was quoted. I find the total financial liability falling on consumers and taxpayers very complex to account for, but it is likely to be huge and perhaps larger. Equally, it could perhaps be smaller. We do not know, as the climate committee admits As an infrastructure project, this revolutionary programme involves greater public expenditure than any done by this country since we committed to fighting the Second World War. It inevitably involves massive disruption to our existing economy. There will certainly be benefits—I accept that—but it will create a new and potentially more expensive energy base, and worsen our export competitiveness by raising costs. It would probably close, or export, our existing high-energy consuming industries—steel, engineering, cement et cetera—and if it does, it will hit jobs and living standards. The idea of a cleaner environment is commendable, and I have always supported it, but these are huge costs We have to ask, as the Chancellor did in his letter to the Prime Minister, which areas of public expenditure may have to suffer the costs to pay for it. Will health, social care, schools or defence be cut to shoulder that burden? My Labour colleagues, in particular, may wish to consider that. Will it be, as is the case with the £15 billion in current climate costs, that the working people of this country carry the main burden, relative to their incomes, through paying significantly higher energy costs and green taxes to subside renewables? I note that the committee seems to appreciate that problem and I will be interested in the Government’s response to it The climate change revolution is predominantly a professional-class religion where the main cost is paid by working people who often do not share the faith. The noble Lord, Lord Deben, claimed that most people are on his side. There is no evidence for that. Polls have long shown that working people do not massively support this project, and they have not yet heard of these proposed new burdens. Whatever noble Lords’ feelings about decarbonisation—I sense that most people probably like the general idea because they rightly, like me, dislike pollution and want a better environment—they must surely agree that it is irresponsible of the Government to push through this massive and not fully-considered project in a statutory instrument without serious assessment of the practicality of its proposed details or costs, and where those costs will fall. Surely with such a massive project we can wait until the Treasury—or perhaps, as I would like to see, an independent inquiry chaired by the Treasury followed by full parliamentary scrutiny—reports to us. This project must be properly handled by the Government, positively, with concern for our future environment but also with responsible concern for its technological and financial practicality, and the livelihoods of our working people My final, and even more worrying, point is about the cavalier way in which this costly adventure has been launched. It is being proposed on a single-nation basis—not that that is its ideal, but it is there. The UK is apparently to be prepared to do this with no guarantees of the global environmental benefits, thus offering virtue-signalling moral leadership to the whole world. That is dangerous. Our share of global emissions is just over 1%. If we alone decarbonise tomorrow, that is the amount by which global carbon emissions will diminish, yet in the next few years China and India alone—the great carbon emitters—will increase their carbon emissions by more than double that share. Our contribution will be swamped and carbon emissions will still rise, but at what economic cost to the working people of this country? Pursuing zero carbon in Britain alone while the big emitters continue to pollute the atmosphere on a massive scale is a futile gesture of moral imperialism. No doubt the virtue signallers have good intentions—I have never questioned that—but, as an earlier politician wisely said, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. We should mobilise the present environmental energy to encourage the great economies of the world to look seriously at the scientific facts on climate change, not at the alarmist propaganda, and then, in a measured way in conjunction with the observational evidence, move towards a time when carbon emissions are more limited. However, that world discipline and its benefits must be guaranteed and not based on delusional hopes. There should be no false paper promises based on ill-supported forecasts, like the Paris agreement Until then, our Government must take their national duties responsibly, scrutinising any climate venture with care, checking the observational facts of the science and allowing into the process sensible sceptics asking questions—as was traditionally done under Enlightenment science—and not behaving, as the BBC now sadly does, like a Stalinist censor, excluding any informed sceptic who questions wilder climate fantasies. I say to the BBC that working people will not have much extra revenue to buy their licences if all these proposals go through. Above all, the Government must scrutinise properly. We may eventually wish to enter this revolution but must first agree on whether it will pragmatically achieve its shared purpose, what it will cost and who will pay for it.