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

My Lords, I have listened with great interest to the debate, which has been a bit like a Second Reading debate on climate change. I am beginning to think that I have been rehearing some of the stories one heard in the eight years of George Bush’s presidency of the United States. There was a kind of unholy alliance between him and the oil companies to fund an enormous number of scientists to produce evidence, which was clearly in their view fact, that there was no such thing as global warming, the sea was not rising and it was all a big mistake. I do not know which is true. From what I have read, just as many scientists have said that there is a serious problem with global warming. The noble Lord, Lord Leach, quoted a large number of scientists, but in his response to the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, he did not explain whether the sea level is rising. The noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, said that it is not. The noble Lord, Lord Leach, did not deny that it is rising, but he did not explain how it is rising or whether it is due to warmer water and/or the ice cap melting. Perhaps he can do that. I sort of visualise King Canute sitting by the beach waiting for it to happen and when it happens saying, "It is not happening. My feet are not getting wet". I believe the scientists who say that there is a serious problem with global warming and I welcome what the Government are trying to do about it. They are setting an example with the European Union and, to an extent, other parts of the world. I give my noble friend seven or eight out of 10, which is even more than my noble friend Lord Lea gave him. I have a couple of questions about world aviation and shipping, on which I urge the Minister to go a little further. It is good to know that there will be ways to measure them, but I hope that very soon we can go even further than that. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Lawson, congratulated the Government on joined-up government with DfID. If he did not, he should have done. I suggest that the same approach is taken in respect of BERR. On what the Government can do to put into practice the policies now being developed, I welcome the 2p on the fuel duty. But I am surprised that we are still going ahead with the £1,000 payment to anyone who wants to scrap an old car to buy a new one, especially when cars are mostly made abroad and there is no particular job benefit in this country. That investment could go into better cycling and walking—it would be very cheap and healthy, which sitting in a car is not—and public transport. Investing in infrastructure in this country creates jobs in this country, so there would be a win-win situation. I hope my noble friend will say that the subsidy to buy a new car and scrap an old one is just an aberration, and that the real policy will emerge in the coming months through investing in projects and policies which will improve the rather lamentable performance of the transport sector in going green. In the mean time, I support my noble friend’s introduction to these regulations.