Climate Change (Targeted Greenhouse Gases) Order 2022

I will take a moment to talk through what this order will do. The Climate Change Act 2008 was the first of its kind and made the UK the first country to introduce a legally binding long-term emissions reduction target. This order updates the Act by introducing nitrogen trifluoride as the seventh targeted greenhouse gas under the Act. NF₃, primarily used in the production of electronics, is considered a potent contributor to climate change, and estimated to be 17,000 times more potent than carbon dioxide. This order will rightly introduce new duties on the Secretary of State to report on these harmful emissions.

Happily, I can assure the House that NF₃ emissions have been captured in UK greenhouse gas emissions national statistics and international reporting to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change since 2015. NF₃ is also in scope of the UK’s nationally determined contribution under the Paris Agreement. This order will, however, ensure that the Climate Change Act and statutory reporting pursuant to the Act are aligned with our greenhouse gas inventories and international reporting practice, and that our domestic targets continue to align with the latest science.

I assure the House that this statutory instrument does not put our domestic targets at risk. Representing less than 0.0001% of total UK territorial emissions in 2020, this inclusion in carbon budgets does not make a material difference to the challenge of meeting them and can therefore be tackled without reviewing the levels of the legislated targets.

I place on record my thanks to the Committee on Climate Change for its advice in this regard. It similarly holds the view that the addition of NF₃ to the Act will not jeopardise our ability to meet our carbon budgets and net-zero target. Recognising the important role of measuring and reporting energy use and carbon data, the Government introduced a streamlined energy and carbon reporting framework on 1 April 2019. This reporting framework sets a light-touch reporting regime, setting out minimum mandatory emissions reporting requirements for all quoted companies and large businesses, which will, as a result of this order, now also cover NF₃ emissions. Due to the very low use of NF₃ in UK production, and as existing reporting methodologies, such as the widely used greenhouse gas protocol, already require NF₃ to be included in companies’ inventories, I assure the House that the impact on business from this instrument coming into force will also be minimal.

I place on record my thanks to the Administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, for their support during the consultation process in bringing forward this legislation. I am grateful to the Welsh Minister for Climate Change, who has also tabled a statutory instrument consent memorandum before the Senedd, stating that this order is the most practicable legislative vehicle for the provision in question to apply in Wales. My officials will continue to engage with their colleagues in the Welsh Government and I hope that, by the time this order leaves the other place, an SI consent Motion will have been passed by the Senedd.

The Government want to ensure that, as we transition the economy to net zero, the Climate Change Act evolves with the necessary developments in science and our international commitments. Therefore, I commend this order to the House.

As we are coming to the end of the third carbon budget period, I would appreciate it if the Minister could update the House on the current expectation going into the fourth period next year. Given that these budgets were set long in advance—the third in 2008 and the fourth in 2011—they require long-term policy planning, and while the Climate Change Committee in June this year stated that the prospects for meeting the fourth are better than for meeting the fifth and sixth, it has also highlighted the dependence on short-term macroeconomic trends and the extent to which emissions rebounded following the pandemic.

On a wider note, the Climate Change Committee’s report in June emphasised that delivery is undermining the Government’s policy ambition. What steps are the Government taking to address this and to ensure that the positive words are met with the required delivery actions? The report also emphasised that action to address the rising cost of living should be aligned to net zero, yet we have seen the Government favouring non-renewables, with their loopholes to the oil and gas levy, while continuing their apparent ban on onshore wind.

We have asked for this to be considered many times, but I would be interested to hear the Government’s assessment of the impact that these decisions will have on their ability to hit forthcoming carbon budgets.

The noble Lord, Lord Lennie, posed a number of other questions. If the noble Lord will forgive me, I will come back to him on those in writing. I commend this order to the House.