UK Net Zero Emissions Target

Statement

My Lords, with the leave of the House, I will repeat a Statement made in another place by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. The Statement is as follows:

“With permission, Mr Speaker, I give the Statement on legislation I have tabled today to end our country’s contribution to global warming. There are many issues in this House on which we passionately disagree, but there are moments when we can act together to take the long-term decisions that will shape the future of the world that we leave to our children and grandchildren.

Just over a decade ago, I was the shadow Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change when the right honourable Member for Doncaster North secured Royal Assent for the landmark 2008 Climate Change Act. I was proud on behalf of my party to speak in support of the first law of its kind in the world setting a legally binding target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 80% by 2050 relative to 1990 levels.

Today, I am proud to stand on this side of the House to propose an amendment to the same Act which will enable this Parliament to make its own historic commitment to tackling climate change—a commitment that has been made possible by many years of hard work from Members across the House of Commons and beyond.

I want to thank in particular my noble friend Lord Deben for his leadership as chair of the independent Committee on Climate Change, the committee’s members and staff, and the honourable Member for Leeds West and my honourable friend the Member for Cheltenham for their recent Bills that have also paved the way for today’s legislation. I also pay tribute to the extraordinary work of my friend and ministerial colleague the right honourable Member for Devizes.

Today we can make the United Kingdom the first major economy in the world to commit to ending our contribution to global warming for ever. The United Kingdom was the home of the first industrial revolution. Furnaces and mills nestled in English dales, coal mines in the Welsh valleys, shipyards on the Clyde and in Belfast harbour. They powered the world into the industrial age.

We now stand on the threshold of a new fourth industrial revolution—one not powered by fossil fuels, but driven by green growth and clean, renewable technologies. Once again the United Kingdom and all its parts stand ready to lead the way. It is right that economies like ours, which made use of carbon-intensive technologies to start that first industrial revolution, should now blaze a trail in the fourth industrial revolution. Whether it be through our global offshore wind industry, our leadership on green finance or our unrivalled research base that is leading the charge on electric vehicles, we are showing that the economic benefits of cutting emissions can help to grow our economy.

Through our industrial strategy, the UK is already forging that future, leading the way in the development, manufacture and use of low-carbon technologies. By responding to the grand challenges that we have set—including on the future of mobility and clean growth—we are already creating thousands of new jobs right across the country. We are showing that there is no false choice between protecting our planet and improving our prosperity. We can and must do both.

Low-carbon technology and clean energy already contribute more than £44 billion to our economy every year. In 2017, energy-related carbon dioxide emissions in the UK reached their lowest levels since 1888. Last year, we secured more than half our electricity from low-carbon sources. Just last month, we set a new record for the number of days we have gone without burning any coal, since the world’s first public coal-fired power station opened in London in 1882. We have said that we will completely phase out unabated coal-fired power generation by 2025, ending the harmful impacts to our health and environment for good. Together with Canada, we launched the Powering Past Coal Alliance, which has now seen 80 national and local governments, alongside businesses and NGOs, join together in a pioneering commitment to phase out unabated coal.

If our actions are to be equal to the scale of the threat, nations across the world must strive to go further still. We in the United Kingdom must continue to fulfil our responsibility to lead the way. That is why in October, following the latest evidence from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the Government wrote to the independent Committee on Climate Change to seek its advice on our long-term emissions targets. Last month, it issued its response recommending that we legislate for the UK to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, taking into account our emissions from international air travel and shipping, so I am today laying a statutory instrument —in fact, it is already before the House—to amend the Climate Change Act 2008 with a new legally binding net zero emissions target by 2050. Ending our contribution to climate change can be the defining decision of our generation in fulfilling our responsibility to the next.

However, it will require the effort of a generation to deliver it, so I am grateful to all those business leaders, faith leaders, scientists and climate campaigners—and many Members of this House—who have written to the Prime Minister and me to express support for this landmark proposal. It will require government and political parties of all colours to work together with all sectors of business and society. We must fully engage young people too, which is why a new youth steering group, led by the British Youth Council, will be set up to advise government—for the first time giving young people the chance directly to shape our future climate policy.

The assessment of the independent Committee on Climate Change is based on the latest climate science. It drives our ability to drive action on the international stage and considers current consumer trends and technologies. The committee concluded that a net zero 2050 target is feasible, deliverable and can be met within the exact same cost envelope of 1% to 2% of GDP in 2050 as the 80% target when it was set, such has been the power of innovation in reducing costs.

It is, however, absolutely right that we should also look carefully at how such costs are distributed in the longer term, as Professor Dieter Helm recommended in his report to the Government. The Government are also today accepting the recommendation of the independent Committee on Climate Change for the Treasury to lead a review into the costs of decarbonisation. This will consider how to achieve the transition to net zero in a way that works for households, businesses and public finances. It will also consider the implications for UK competitiveness.

In fulfilling the scale of the commitment we are making today, we will need technological and logistical changes in the way we use our land: for example, with more emphasis on carbon sequestration. We will need to redouble our determination to seize the opportunity to support investment in a range of new technologies, including in areas such as carbon capture, usage and storage, hydrogen and bioenergy. But as the committee also found, the foundations for these step changes are already in place, including in the industrial strategy and the clean growth strategy.

Indeed, there is no reason whatever to fear that fulfilling this commitment will do anything to limit our success in the years ahead—quite the reverse. In our industrial strategy, we have backed technology and innovation, including the UK’s biggest ever increase in public investment in research and development—the biggest that has ever taken place in the history of this country. The International Energy Agency report on the UK, published last week, found that:

‘The United Kingdom has shown real results in terms of boosting investment in renewables, reducing emissions and maintaining energy security’.

By doubling down on innovation in this way, we can expect to reap the benefits as we move forward toward meeting this target by 2050.

I believe that by leading the world and harnessing the power of innovative new technologies, we can seize the full economic potential of building a competitive and climate-neutral economy, but we do not intend for a moment for this to be a unilateral action. If we are to meet the challenge of climate change, we need international partners across the world to step up to this level of ambition. While we retain the ability in the Act to use international carbon credits that contribute to actions in other countries, we want them to take their own actions, and we do not intend to use them.

We will continue to drive this, including through our bid to host COP 26. As the IEA report found last week, the UK’s efforts are,

‘an inspiration for many countries who seek to design effective decarbonisation frameworks’.

Just as we have reviewed the 2008 Act in making this amendment today, so we will use the review mechanism contained in the Act within five years to confirm that other countries are taking similarly ambitious action, multiplying the effect of the UK’s lead and ensuring that our industries do not face unfair competition.

Finally, I do not believe that this commitment will negatively affect our day-to-day lives. No G20 country has decarbonised its economy as quickly as we have. Today, the UK is cleaner and greener, but no one can credibly suggest that our lives are worse as a result. Quite the reverse, we are richer in every sense of the word, for being cleaner, for wasting less and for cherishing, not squandering, our common inheritance.

We may account for less than 1% of the world’s population and around 1% of global carbon emissions, but by making this commitment we can lead by example. We can be the ambitious global Britain that we all want our country to be. We can seize this once-in-a-generation opportunity to tackle one of the biggest threats to humanity, making this a defining and unifying commitment of an otherwise riven and often irresolute Parliament—a commitment that is agreed by all, honoured by all and fulfilled by all.

In the first industrial revolution, we applied the powers of science and innovation to create new products and services in which this country came to excel, but which came at a cost to our environment. In this new industrial revolution, we can innovate and lead all over again, creating new markets and earning our way in the world in the decades ahead, but in a way that protects our planet for every generation that follows ours. When history is written, this Parliament can be remembered not only for the times it disagreed but for the moment when it forged this most significant agreement of all. I commend this Statement to the House”.

My Lords, that concludes the Statement.

My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement made earlier in the other place, which we welcome. I am pleased to hear the Government confirm they will be adopting Labour’s policy, announced at our 2018 conference, to target net zero emissions before 2050. I look forward to examining the statutory instrument that legislates for this target, and hope that time is found as soon as is reasonably possible to give it appropriate debate. Can the Minister confirm when it might be timetabled?

This has become a generational issue. Parliament and Government must recognise the growing challenge of climate change. Meeting the target of net zero emissions by 2050 is the only way to avoid a climate catastrophe and the horrors that could be realised if the world does not come together to prevent a 1.5 degree temperature rise. Net zero emissions by 2050 must not be left as an ambitious aim; it must become a real achievement. The Government are not even on track to meet their existing climate targets, so they have a long way to go to engender confidence. We need only look to the comments made by the Committee on Climate Change and official BEIS statistics to see that the UK is far from meeting its fourth and fifth carbon budgets at present. The Government must show immediately that there is a genuine commitment to this new goal.

Will the Minister outline in detail the immediate steps the Government will take to ensure that the public can be confident that these targets will be met? The UK most emphatically needs a green industrial revolution to answer key questions and target causes of emissions today.

First, what policies does the UK need to clean up our gas supply? We need to develop carbon capture and storage and enable industry to use clean sources. Fracking is not an answer to today’s challenge. Secondly, the Government must dismantle the blockages to onshore wind. They need to make sure that the cheapest form of renewable energy is able to contribute, and support new, innovative projects, low emissions and renewables, as the House discussed last week in relation to tidal power. Instead of closing down options, such as feed-in tariff schemes, the Government must enable commercial solar development to flourish.

My Lords, this is obviously a very welcome Statement, and all the more so because it is such a surprise. It has been a real conversion on the road to Damascus by this Government, which as a general rule have not featured environmental issues and climate near the top of their priorities. In fact, the Government have been keen to abandon a number of policies introduced during the coalition Government by Ed Davey when he was Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change. That has led to a loss of impetus in the renewable energy industries. In practice, 2050 may still be too late, especially if the Government and their successors adopt the tactic of leaving the heavy lifting until last. They cannot simply reach for a few easy plastic straws; they have to tackle the really difficult issues at the start, and there has to be a very steep trajectory of change if this is to have the impact it should.

The noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, referred to transport policy. That will certainly need to be one of the first government policies to be revolutionised as a result of this new approach. Will the Government now rethink their leisurely approach to ending the manufacture of petrol and diesel cars? The date they have set is 2040. The industry is going to get there well before then, but it needs to have the Government supporting and encouraging it as well as pushing it along the way, so 2030 would be a much better date. Will the Government rethink their decision to reduce subsidies for the purchase of electric vehicles and their approach to the abandonment of the electrification of the railways?

Turning to energy, will the Government reconsider their opposition to the Swansea tidal lagoon? It has a huge contribution to make, along with subsequent lagoons around the coast once one is built. As I say, that could make a huge contribution to renewable energy in our country. How can the Government expect to reach this target when fracking is still a UK energy source?

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord and the noble Baroness for their—I suppose I ought to say “relatively”—positive welcome for this Statement. I think I heard a slightly more positive welcome from their colleagues in another place when I listened to my right honourable friend make the Statement I am merely repeating. Anyway, I got some sort of welcome.

I will deal with some of the points made on the negative side of their so-called welcome—first, the allegation yet again that we are failing to meet the existing targets. We have met the first two carbon budgets, are on track to meet the third and are over 90% of the way to meeting the fourth and fifth. Many of the policies and proposals in the Clean Growth Strategy published a little under two years ago are taken into account. Obviously, there is more to be done, but we are making progress, doing what we can and will continue to do what we can. As advised by the climate change committee, we now want to set stricter and more testing targets as necessary.

The noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, asked what steps we are taking. He knows about the 2017 Clean Growth Strategy. I hope he is awaiting the energy White Paper that will come out later in the summer, and we will probably have a chance to discuss this matter in greater detail when we get the statutory instrument. He asked when that will come before the House, and at this point I have to say that that is beyond my control. I am awaiting advice from the usual channels and will be ready and available to debate that with all noble Lords as and when it is ready.

The noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, then posed a number of specific questions about various forms of renewable energy, such as why we could not do more onshore. I point him to the success of offshore wind: we have seen a dramatic decrease in the costs of offshore energy, are now the world leaders in offshore wind energy and are making great strides forward. He asked what we are doing about nuclear. As I have made clear in a number of recent debates in this House, we are still committed to nuclear, which can provide carbon-free energy and the baseload we need at this stage. We will continue to pursue the possibilities of nuclear, but not at any cost—as my right honourable friend made clear when he made the announcements about Moorside and Wylfa. Again, we will continue to look at possibilities for expansion regarding small modular reactors, advanced modular reactors and so on.

My Lords, I welcome the Minister’s Statement, and the Government’s decision to set a target. Both are welcome, but the Minister and the Statement are implying profound changes in the lives of everyone in this country, including in housing, transport and workplace experience. The Statement needs to be underpinned by a sector-by-sector approach to how this will be achieved and delivered.

One thing that cannot happen—the Minister and I had an exchange about this earlier this week—is achieving this without a contribution from civil nuclear power. The world, never mind the UK, is not going to get by without civil nuclear power. We have abandoned our own ability to build a nuclear power station. I do not blame the present Government for this; other Governments are culpable, including the one I was a Minister in. The Government should set up a task force to see how we can recreate that ability on our own account, because depending on the Japanese, the Chinese or the French is a high-risk business. I hope the Government will give that serious consideration.

My Lords, on the noble Lord’s first point, he is right that these are great challenges and that there will have to be a change in behaviour. We should go about this in the right way, taking people with us because a great deal of this will involve changes in individual lives. We are already seeing this through a decline in car use by many people. I have certainly noticed that younger people are purchasing fewer cars and so on. Again, this is disruptive for the automotive industry but if we want to make these changes these things will happen, and changes are happening. We will need to take people with us. However, the Government must offer help in both innovation and research, and we will do that. On the noble Lord’s point about nuclear, I have made it clear it that we have not abandoned nuclear but we want it at the right price. As we made clear in the nuclear sector deal last year, we will continue to put research into all aspects of nuclear, whether small modular, large nuclear or whatever.

My Lords, when we passed the original Climate Change Act in 2008, the UK was the first country to pass a legally binding target for reducing our climate-damaging emissions. I am glad that in setting that example we triggered action from other countries; Sweden and New Zealand have now also legislated. Now that we are taking this bolder step to remove all our domestic emissions, we will see others follow. In the past few weeks, both Chile and Japan have committed to moving to net zero targets. I commend the Government and everyone who has contributed to getting to this position. The UK is taking the morally correct path. We are showing leadership at a time when the world is completely distracted by the rise of nationalism and populism. We are saying that there are more important issues that unify us as citizens of this sole planet that we share. We must take every step to ensure that this is not just a paper target but is backed up by policy. We have decades of examples of how we have done this; we are not starting with a blank sheet of paper. We have shown that we can decarbonise fastest among all OECD countries without it affecting our growth or economic development. We are a shining beacon of hope in fairly dark times. I sincerely hope we will take our message to the UN in September, to Washington and Beijing, and that we will see others stepping up and increasing their ambition. It is easier and cheaper to do this than it has ever been. The technologies are there, the political will is growing and the children are out on the streets demanding that we do more. I am delighted that the Government are showing such leadership. Now we need to take it to Parliaments all around the world.

My Lords, before the Minister replies, I suggest that questions be kept succinct and short to enable as many Peers as possible to speak in the time available.

My Lords, I shall try to keep my answers short. I accept what the noble Baroness said: in 2008 we were the first country to legislate and we are now bringing forward tighter proposals to take us to net zero by 2050. I think the French have just brought forward legislation on this. Let us see if we can pass ours before the French.

I declare an interest, as in the register. Has my noble friend seen yesterday’s reports that last year worldwide carbon emissions rose faster than for many years past? Indeed, the amount by which carbon emissions increased is said to be the equivalent of putting 400 million new motor cars on the road—that is an additional third of all the cars on the roads on the planet. Energy consumption rose even faster—to record levels—last year. Does this not indicate that whatever we do here, however admirable it is and however we try to promote our example, the fact is that the fundamental approach—even despite Paris—to world carbon emissions is not working. Is not a totally new approach now needed?

My Lords, my noble friend is right to say that what we do on our own about emissions will not make that big a difference. However, the leadership we can show is important. That is why we are committed to going further and trying to secure the hosting of COP26 next year. We will do all we can to continue to show leadership in that area.

My Lords, I strongly welcome the Government’s commitment, particularly given the Chancellor of the Exchequer apparently trying to argue that they should not make it. This is an important moment, supported across the House.

I work in development, housing and renewable heat. I should declare that, but I do so because I am deeply concerned that, while a car may last a decade or so, the houses we build today will—we hope—last a century or much longer. Between now and 2025, when the Minister said we would introduce the new regulations, we will have built some 2 million more homes. Retrofitting old homes to meet zero carbon targets for heat and water is extremely difficult. We have that problem for all those we have already built. We should not build millions more without making that long-term decision now. The Committee on Climate Change has pointed that out and asked for urgent action. London has shown that if you bring in new standards, the market quickly moves to them. Will the Minister bring forward the changes that he has indicated will not come through until 2025?

My Lords, on his first point, the noble Lord is wrong to say that the Chancellor was trying to squash this: he was merely pointing out potential costs. As was made clear in the Statement, the climate change committee estimates that the annual cost of delivering a net zero target is within the same range as the 80% target was when it was set in 2008. Our own assessment of costs is within that range. It is right that the Chancellor takes an interest in the likely costs—after all, he is responsible for these measures.

The noble Lord is right to point to the importance of what we do about homes. We have an appropriate target and have announced what we want to do about energy efficiency by 2025. We will stick to that date, which will allow us to meet our target.

My Lords, in the Statement the Minister spoke of a review in five years’ time. Why is this necessary, particularly after what the noble Baroness said? Surely this will be interpreted as showing less commitment? It would provide an excuse to delay investment for five years because it provides too short a timescale. Will the Government give this more consideration?

My Lords, the noble Lord will remember that the idea of a five-year review was part of the original 2008 Act—which I am sure he supported, because the Act was introduced by a Government of which he was probably part at the time. We will continue with this idea, but we can review matters further if there are changes and developments as we commit. We are bound to review every five years but could do so earlier.

My Lords, I welcome this aspiration—that is what it is. I notice that air travel was not mentioned, although it leaves a particularly big carbon footprint. Can my noble friend help me: which of this country’s political parties does he think will put in its next manifesto that it will stop the good people of this country going on holiday to the Costa Brava or Florida, or, indeed, flying back first-class from Los Angeles to take part in demonstrations in this country? That is contributing greatly to the carbon in the atmosphere.