Climate Change Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 64: 64: Clause 12, page 7, line 1, leave out ““aviation or from international shipping are”” and insert ““shipping is”” The noble Lord said: My Lords, we come back to aviation and shipping, which we debated at some length in Committee. I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 117 and 232. We listened to the Minister’s response to the debate in Committee. We accept that this is not an easy area and that the Bill should approach the shipping and aviation industries in different ways. Our amendments would include aviation immediately but delay the inclusion of international shipping for three years. We accept that shipping is a particularly difficult area on which to make calculations. There needs to be a thorough review—we hope within an international context but, ultimately, if it comes to it, not necessarily so—to ensure that we get the shipping figures right. That is why the amendments propose delaying the inclusion of shipping for three years. Shipping, although less important in terms of growth and size than the aviation industry, is still a major area of emissions internationally. Given that the United Kingdom is one of the world’s great trading nations, we cannot leave that sector out indefinitely. However, the Bill does exactly that; there is no time limit, as we see it, for when international shipping has to be included. We hope that transport and trade will increase thanks to globalisation, but carbon emissions have to be taken into account so that the shipping sector also feels the pressure on its carbon efficiency in the way in which it operates worldwide. The aviation industry is much more important and cannot be ignored in terms of fast and urgent implementation of the Bill. Why is that? In the UK context, transport is the fastest-growing area of carbon emissions. If we take transport generally out of our calculations, the United Kingdom has a good record on CO2 reduction despite GDP growth. It is in transport that emissions have grown over the past few years and, within that sector, aviation has grown even more substantially. It is therefore the most challenging of sectors, which we must include from the beginning in government attention and recording in the UK net carbon account. Although internationally aviation counts for only some 2 per cent of emissions, it is, even internationally, one of the highest-growth sectors—something like 5 per cent per annum. Let me put that into context. One transatlantic flight from Heathrow to the United States means an extra 160 tonnes of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Worldwide some 130 million tonnes of fuel are used by the aviation industry per annum and each day there are some 85,000 commercial flights. I go through those statistics because this area cannot be ignored. The Government rightly see the control and targeting of greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide in particular, as key to climate change and as something that we should lead on. Therefore, for the sake of the authority of the Bill, both internationally and within the United Kingdom, we cannot leave out the carbon emissions source that has more growth than any other. How can we have a climate change Bill that does not immediately recognise growth in emissions in its largest-growing sector? To me, that takes away the integrity of the Bill, not just in a national but in an international context. The Minister went through international standards at some length, saying that there was not yet a method of apportioning these national emissions as international ones. It is often mentioned that the EU Emissions Trading Scheme will almost certainly, subject to agreement within Europe, come into play in 2011-12. Therefore, why should we not leave it until then? I answer strongly that the reports on climate change, such as those from the IPCC and the Stern review, all say that action is most important in the short term. The longer we leave areas to be managed, controlled or monitored, the more difficult it will be to make up that time later. That is why leaving the highest-growth sector on the back burner for another four or five years is not acceptable.