Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill

moved Amendment No. 106:"Page 2, line 5, after ““enhanced”” insert ““, developed””" The noble Lord said: The noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe, has highlighted the dilemma which prompted me to table this amendment and, more particularly, Amendment No. 112. The general purpose of the body we are at present calling English Nature seems to be looking backwards. It is conservation oriented; it wants to preserve. These are wholly laudable things. The one thing left out of the purpose is the possible effect of climate change and the need for finding solutions to that; to change the way that some things are done in the countryside and maybe, even—Heaven help us—to change the nature of the countryside itself. That is the reality which we increasingly have to face. It is not an easy one. It is very uncomfortable. If we do not find the solution to that problem, however, everything else written in this general purpose, frankly, becomes meaningless. The impact of climate change is not going to be sustainable. It is as simple as that. The noble Lord, Lord May of Oxford, in his debate on climate change, said—among other things in a very long, detailed and interesting speech—that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere may reach the levels towards which we now know we are pushing it, and remain there for an historically long period, and that when such an atmosphere last existed on this planet, the sea level was 300 feet higher than it is today. There may be an inaccuracy in that, and it may be two or three millennia away. It may be that we need not concern ourselves with what may be two or three or five millennia away. However, our successors will certainly be concerned—if, in fact, that is the problem. If we are creating a problem, they will not bless us if we do not start to look for solutions. That may well mean doing things not only to our urban communities, but to our rural communities and the countryside, and changing many aspects of planning along the way. I raise this because there has been an investigation by two very bright researchers—that is not my description, but that of the noble Lord, Lord May of Oxford. A paper entitled Stabilization Wedges – Solving the Climate Problem for the Next 50 Years with Current Technologies was published in Science on 13 August 2004, by Messrs S Pacala and R Socolow. It is a serious academic paper, but is also a very practical academic paper. It looks at the problem on a global scale. I raise it because it has some relevance to what we are discussing. Messrs Pacala and Socolow have looked at current technologies and asked what can be done with those technologies that will stabilise carbon dioxide emissions over the next 50 years and then possibly start to reduce them. They came up with 15 possible actions, any eight of which would stabilise carbon dioxide emissions. If all 15 were capable of implementation—and some of them conflict slightly with each other—we would begin to reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. It is not my purpose to list all 15 because that would not be relevant to this debate. However, five of them affect the countryside in one way or another and I shall list those. The first is wind electricity. A deployment of wind electricity 700 times greater than the present global deployment, that is 30 million hectares, would provide an eighth of what is necessary to stabilise carbon dioxide emissions. That is a massive increase in contribution. We are behind some countries and ahead of others, but we are a developed country with above global average emissions of carbon dioxide per head and we must bear our share of the problem. That may mean more wind farms than we have at present even begun to think about and that will affect the countryside. We need many hundred times more photovoltaic electricity than the present deployment. It is possible that we can achieve that by using the roofs of houses, but such electricity will produce more energy per acre than plants. We may need to consider the possibility of industrial-type installations in the countryside. Biofuels are a countryside option and every farmer is hoping they are the answer to his prayers. They could make a daily contribution of 34 million barrels of ethanol. At present, that would take 250 million hectares producing 15 tonnes per hectare of convertible dry matter. That implies intensive agricultural production of a type that might not be deemed to be in the best interests of the beauty of the English countryside, except that the English countryside will start to change and may possibly disappear in the longer term if we do not find a solution. On this action, Pacala and Socolow comment that it could compromise global capacity for food production: I made that comment in this Chamber without having the authority of their studies behind me, and it is nice to see that. Another action, which is perhaps rather better, is forest management. Stopping the clear-felling of tropical forests and reforesting 250,000 hectares in the tropics or—this is where it could affect us—400,000 million hectares in temperate zones would be a huge increase in afforestation. If we play our part in that—and forests are beautiful and would be a great asset—it would be a dramatic change in the nature of our countryside if it were done on any considerable scale. The final action will perhaps make farmers in the House chuckle. It is agricultural soils management. It is called conservation tillage and will reduce carbon dioxide emissions if, as Pacala and Socolow comment,"““it is proved to work as advertised””." That will affect 1,600 million hectares. That is what will be required, or something like it, if we are to start tackling the issue of global warming seriously. Our share of these actions will inevitably have a dramatic impact on our countryside. Therefore, I thought it worth while tabling these probing amendments. The Government say that they are serious about global warming. But if we are serious about it, we cannot pretend that the English countryside will not be affected. It will be affected. Some people will regard some of the effects as adverse. It will be different countryside in 50 years’ time. Otherwise, we will create problems for which our grandchildren’s grandchildren will not thank us. I beg to move.