My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, has posed a fairly simple question to the House. There is widespread agreement that we are aiming for a very substantial reduction—80%—in carbon emissions by 2050. There is also wide agreement, embodied in the Bill, that we should have a considerable measure of decarbonisation by 2030. For the most part, there is no dispute about that. When I have discussed this with some of the companies outside, they all accept that that is what we are heading towards. The question is whether we set the figure for 2030 now or wait until 2016, as the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, suggested at the end of his speech, a bit to my surprise. The argument for 2016 is really quite strong. Under the Climate Change Act, this is all administered by the climate change committee, of which my noble friend Lord Deben is the chairman, and which is engaged in setting a series of five-year ceilings as the measure of decarbonisation, leading to an 80% cut by 2050.
The fifth carbon budget comes up in 2016. It seems to be of the highest importance that the figure agreed for 2030 should be consistent with what the climate change committee comes to in 2016. I think that the effect of the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, would be to set now what the figure would be—which would seem to make that extremely difficult if not very doubtful. The noble Lord, Lord O’Neill of Clackmannan, said, “Let it be done by regulations and then you can change it”. I am not sure that is not exactly where we are anyway. The climate change committee will be setting a fifth carbon budget in 2016, which will of course be part of the then Government’s policy. The question is whether we do it now or wait until then.
I have attended a number of meetings in the past two or three weeks on this subject but will just mention,
in passing, one thing that disturbs me. I read the short report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The report of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change also came into my possession, which takes the view that the intergovernmental panel is completely wrong. What disturbs me about these two bodies, and I will leave it there, is that they do not argue with each other—they abuse each other. One side calls the other climate change deniers and that side calls the others back a bunch of government stooges. I find that a very tiresome argument. If one is going to have an argument about something, one should have a proper one, not one that just descends into abuse.
One of the most interesting meetings that I attended was the one chaired by my noble friend Lord Deben and also, I think, by the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington. One of the points that my noble friend made was that the climate change committee has always been determinedly technology-neutral. It does not seek to identify how a particular target should be reached. It accepts the international figures and then sets a British target for that. I have found that the people I talk to are worried that this is all very well for this country but that Europe has gone and set a technology target, with a figure for 2020—I cannot remember the exact figure—that has to be covered by renewables. The companies who are having to invest and develop their investment programmes say, “Which are we to believe? Are we free to work towards the 2030 target or do we have to pay attention to this?”. The one thing I agreed with my noble friend Lord Lawson about was when he quoted from that extremely interesting Financial Times article and said that if one thinks there is something wrong—as I think there is with this technology target—the right answer is to renegotiate. One of the questions that I therefore ask my noble friend is: what are the chances of our going to the European Union and saying, “Look, this 2020 target for renewables is really quite inconsistent with the much broader target, which will lead on to our 2050 target”? It seems to me that it is an aberration, and that is unfortunate. We should renegotiate that directive.
4.15 pm
The other meeting that I attended was chaired by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London, and that was extremely interesting too. There we were harangued—well, not harangued, that would be quite wrong as he was very polite—by Mr Andrew Raingold of the Aldersgate Group. He said that industry is clamouring to know now what the 2030 target should be, and we had a bit of that with some of the earlier speakers this afternoon. Indeed, he feels that there is a massive loss of confidence because they do not know what the 2030 target should be, and that is why we having what is described as a hiatus on investment.
I do not think that is right. If one talks to the companies—and I talk to quite a number of them and their advisers—about why they are having a bit of a hiatus in investment at the moment, they say it is because they cannot yet see the full shape of the electricity market reform system which is the heart of this Bill. The Government have gone a very long way
now to publish the details but, as I said to my noble friend’s officials the other day, if they were as good at producing investment as they were at producing paper we would not have a problem. However, all the details are there now and they are becoming clearer. With each new publication there is a new element of certainty, and the industry tells me that it wants the Bill through without hesitation. Industry wants it, as planned, before Christmas. Then the regulations can be made next year and the scheme can start effectively in 2014-15.
That is what industry wants. I have not heard any company, until I heard Mr Raingold quoting them, tell me that the real thing they need to know now is what the 2030 target is going to be. I am sorry, but that is not right. It may suit his argument, but it does not actually represent the facts. I find the argument given to me by the CBI much clearer, and others may have seen it. It states:
“The debate over the carbon intensity target should not hold up important policy details … The CBI supports the Climate Change Act and the carbon targets and budgets enshrined by it, and the Bill must deliver the pace of decarbonisation required to achieve them”.
I agree with that. Investment cases will stand or fall on the details of the contracts for difference,
“the capacity mechanism, and the levy control framework—not on a carbon intensity target”.
We ought to be sensible and have the date that we decide on the 2030 target consistent with the fifth carbon budget of the climate change committee, have the two of them together in 2016 and then take it from there. For that reason, I do not think that I will vote for the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh. If he puts it to the vote and tests the opinion of the House, I shall be in the opposite Lobby.