Climate Change Act 2008 (2020 Target, Credit Limit and Definitions) Order 2009

My Lords, I hope that at some point in the future the noble Lords, Lord Lawson, Lord Stern and Lord Turner of Ecchinswell, can be locked in a room and the key thrown away until such time as they can agree on anything. I followed the analysis of the noble Lord, Lord Lawson, with great care, I read his book, and there are many things a brain the size of mine cannot challenge, so I am inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt. However, the other half of my brain, having been involved in this business for 30 years—I was a government delegate to Rio in 1992, before Kyoto and all the rest of it—sees that there is a problem of sustainability. There is an issue about the OECD taking the lead, if there is a case to be answered whereby China and India have to come on board. It was always a difficulty that we could not be sure that China and India would come on board. We are keeping our fingers crossed about Copenhagen and so on. I think I am right in saying that we are getting closer to a position where the whole world is around the table, rather than just the industrial countries, which arguably have ten times more CO² consumption per head than sub-Saharan Africa. That is the framework in which the debate takes place. There is a different debate about whether there is some long-term cycle in the planet temperature or whether it is very much down to recent human activity that we are going to go over 2 degrees centigrade growth in the lifetime of some people alive today. That will have problems particularly for low-lying areas, with desertification increasing in Africa. However, if I were playing devil’s advocate, I could say that if population is growing in sub-Saharan Africa at 3 per cent per annum, which doubles every 20 years, the whole world is going to have a much bigger crisis than anything we have seen. If we are talking about slash and burn from Madagascar through to Senegal—religion comes into it and so on—all these different factors are very hard to make a coherent speech about because they go on too long. Before I get on to the particular points that I want to make, let me say something about those people who are interested in why the Stern model is flawed, as I believe it is. The noble Lord has been very reluctant to answer questions about my pet topic, which is income distribution and the effect on jobs around the world slowing down by x percent, which he waves aside as very minor relative to the wealth of the world. Leaving aside the inter-generational aspects, we want to know about jobs and so on. If we did not represent people by asking those questions, I do not know who would. It is very important now that the biggest intellects of public policy on this question do not carry on like ships passing in the night, never conceding any point to each other. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Lawson, will nod to indicate that he would be up for that. The noble Lord, Lord Stern, could be encouraged a little. Since he was appointed, he has made only his maiden speech, which was on a totally different subject. We could all strongly encourage all these well informed, two-brained Members to help us out. I note that the orders will come into effect on 31 May 2009. When I saw that, I thought that rang a bell; it is quite soon. Then I realised that it is very soon indeed—it is in two weeks’ time. We have been cutting things a little fine, and so I will be supporting the Government today because if we do not, I do not know what will happen to this whole business. I will give the Government five out of 10.