| Previous Section | Back to Table of Contents | Lords Hansard Home Page |
The aviation industry is much more important and cannot be ignored in terms of fast and urgent implementation of the Bill. Why is that? In the UK context, transport is the fastest-growing area of carbon emissions. If we take transport generally out of our calculations, the United Kingdom has a good record on CO2 reduction despite GDP growth. It is in transport that emissions have grown over the past few years and, within that sector, aviation has grown even more substantially. It is therefore the most challenging of sectors, which we must include from the beginning in government attention and recording in the UK net carbon account.
Although internationally aviation counts for only some 2 per cent of emissions, it is, even internationally, one of the highest-growth sectors—something like 5 per cent per annum. Let me put that into context. One transatlantic flight from Heathrow to the United States means an extra 160 tonnes of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Worldwide some 130 million tonnes of fuel are used by the aviation industry per annum and each day there are some 85,000 commercial flights. I go through those statistics because this area cannot be ignored.
The Government rightly see the control and targeting of greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide in particular, as key to climate change and as something that we should lead on. Therefore, for the sake of the authority of the Bill, both internationally and within the United Kingdom, we cannot leave out the carbon emissions source that has more growth than any other. How can we have a climate change Bill that does not immediately recognise growth in emissions in its largest-growing sector? To me, that takes away the integrity of the Bill, not just in a national but in an international context.
The Minister went through international standards at some length, saying that there was not yet a method of apportioning these national emissions as international ones. It is often mentioned that the EU Emissions Trading Scheme will almost certainly, subject to agreement within Europe, come into play in 2011-12. Therefore, why should we not leave it until then? I answer strongly that the reports on climate change, such as those from the IPCC and the Stern review, all say that action is most important in the short term. The longer we leave areas to be managed, controlled or monitored, the more difficult it will be to make up that time later. That is why leaving the highest-growth sector on the back burner for another four or five years is not acceptable.
4 Mar 2008 : Column 1002
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, Australia has changed dramatically in the past few days, with the election of the new Labor Government, and all three major candidates in the American presidential election, McCain, Clinton and Obama, support international action. Why should we do anything that jeopardises the favourable movement that has already occurred?
Lord Teverson: My Lords, like the noble Lord, I welcome the change in attitude of the Australian Government. I welcome also the commitments of the various American presidential candidates to move towards emission control systems. However, including aviation emissions in the Bill from day one would in no way prejudice that.
Perhaps I may illustrate why that is the case in terms of Europe. We hope that the EU Emissions Trading Scheme will apply to aviation in 2011-12. In the agreements announced by the Commission last month, the aviation sector is not distributed entirely among member states; the international airline industry is treated almost as a 28th member state of the EU in terms of emissions. Therefore, however that solution is worked out in Europe, it does not help us to solve this issue for the Bill in this country.
The UK already notifies international organisations of shadow figures for international aviation emissions based on bunkering. That may not be perfect—no system is—but, at some point, we have to make a choice. I see no merit in making a choice in 2012 as opposed to making a choice now. A decision taken then will be no more perfect than one taken now. In the mean time, we have an industry that is vital to the world’s economy but which also has a vital part to play in reducing emissions and the threat to the climate. I beg to move.
The Chairman of Committees (Lord Brabazon of Tara): My Lords, if the amendment is agreed to, I shall not be able to call Amendment No. 65.
Lord Dixon-Smith: My Lords, I hesitate to intervene, but we need to think carefully about what the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, said, in part because this is a deeply emotional subject, which is wrapped up with the intense debate about the possible expansion of Heathrow.
The complaint of the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, is that aviation’s emissions are growing by 5 per cent. We are talking about a growth of 5 per cent in 2 per cent of global emissions at the present time. If my arithmetic is correct, that is 0.1 per cent. I suspect that a growth of 0.1 per cent in global terms from all emissions is rather less than we achieve from, for instance, our road transport industry. I hold no brief for the transport industries in making that point.
Third-world countries in particular are heavily dependent on income from perishables, which only they can produce economically and with few carbon emissions. If we were to try to produce those goods here, unless we used waste heat from power stations, we would be using fossil fuel to heat greenhouses. Third-world countries are also dependent on the tourist industry. Those industries are transport-based.
4 Mar 2008 : Column 1003
Secondly, in the case of aviation and, to a large degree, shipping, no alternative fuel is available. Technology can take us completely out of fossil fuels for road transport. That may seem like a daydream, but the technology already exists, provided—this is the proviso—that we change the way in which we source our energy. The technologies exist to make that possible as well. I have grave doubts about closing down a large and significant aspect of the global transport system, or making it more difficult or more expensive, when we need it in order to do a great deal of good in the world. We can change everything else, and that is where we should be focusing our efforts.
4.30 pm
Lord Woolmer of Leeds: My Lords, the amendment is not about the future of aviation, but whether an attempt should be made in the next three or four years before the EU Emissions Trading Scheme includes aviation to measure and take account of the emissions from aviation caused by or belonging to this country. That is narrowly what this is about. It is not about whether aviation should or should not be included in emissions trading or should or should not be capped. That is a red herring for the purposes of this debate. The narrow question raised by the amendment is whether it is possible, meaningful and useful to include in the Committee on Climate Change’s first five-year target for carbon emissions aviation emissions that in some sense belong to the UK. I will address simply that point.
The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, acknowledged when he gave an example of how he would include aviation that it is exceptionally difficult—indeed, meaningless and I would say impossible—to designate emissions from international aviation as belonging to the UK as opposed to Europe, for example, and it would be extremely dangerous to do so. In due course, the Committee on Climate Change and the Government will have to decide how meaningfully to include aviation emissions in the UK targets—not to aim to limit them. As I understand it, there is no disagreement among any of the parties in this House, or on the Cross Benches or in Europe, that international aviation needs to come under controls and that that would best be done with international agreements starting with the EU Emissions Trading Scheme.
Therefore, if the Bill is to be amended to insist that the Committee on Climate Change produces some meaningful targets for international aviation for the UK, we have to be convinced that it is possible for it to do so. The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, said that we produce figures now based on bunkering what fuel is put on to aeroplanes. He knows as well as I do that that does not in any meaningful sense represent the emissions arising from international aviation from flights into and out of the UK.
4 Mar 2008 : Column 1004
I respectfully suggest that the amendments would put the climate change committee, and the Government in responding to it, in a hopeless position. They could not come up with a meaningful figure that would be operational in any sense and on which action could be taken. As I said in Committee, putting sectors and emissions into targets must imply that somewhere along the line you are capable of taking actions to meet those targets. Noble Lords on all Benches know that aviation emissions need to be tackled but they are best tackled across the whole of Europe through the EU Emissions Trading Scheme. As a country we will never take action outside the EU Emissions Trading Scheme because, quite apart from anything else, that would be illegal; you could not do it. You would not be allowed to do it. Airlines would simply go to the European Court of Justice. Therefore, I respectfully suggest that to expect the committee in its very first year to produce figures that are both meaningless and completely incapable of being acted on is not a sensible way to proceed.
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, I entirely agree with my noble friend. This amendment is somewhat illusory. We cannot possibly resolve this issue on our own, nor can Europe. Europe can certainly take ameliorative action, and is doing so, with the support of most of the European airlines and of the unions, particularly my own, the British Airline Pilots Association. But to think that we can isolate ourselves and take ameliorative action on our own is pie in the sky; it will not happen. By their very nature international aviation and shipping—shipping is far more difficult to resolve in this regard than aviation—are susceptible only to an international solution. As I say, aviation is much more likely to achieve this action than shipping.
I am enormously encouraged by the fact that the new Australian Government have resolved to embrace an international solution. As I said in an intervention, all the major candidates in America also support that view. So we are left with the difficulty of India and China in particular. At present, they resist the conclusion that there ought to be an international solution but they are much more likely to come on board if America chooses to do so. Therefore, we are much closer to a positive situation than we have ever been. I am not saying that it will be easy to arrive at a solution but there can be no doubt that we are much closer to one than we have ever been before.
This amendment is unrealistic and the Liberal Democrats are being unrealistic in proposing it. The noble Lord shakes his head. That is not the first time he has done so. The Liberal Democrats are being not only unrealistic but unworldly.
Lord Campbell-Savours: My Lords, I believe that the Liberal Democrats have made the error of pursuing the agenda that was put to them by environmental groups outside, in particular Friends of the Earth, by concentrating on the targets that the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, expressed some concern about before, when he talked about the need to concentrate on delivery arrangements as against simply targets. We might recall from the other day that it was the noble Lord,
4 Mar 2008 : Column 1005
I worry that the Liberal Democrats in the other House might fall into the same trap unless they are alerted to the fact that there is a danger in going down this route. There may well be good politics in this, and there may be many a leaflet that can be circulated by Liberal activists around the country, which will inevitably happen, which will accuse the Government of not responding to the debate in the way that the environmental groups demand or require. The leaflets are not really going to deal with the central issue in this debate, which is the mechanism for delivery. We are now confronted, as my noble friend on the Front Bench will know, with amendments that we will debate later—including my Amendments Nos. 175 and 176 and a number of amendments tabled by the Conservative Front Bench which I completely support—that deal with mechanisms. It is interesting to note that it is almost the Liberal Democrat Benches in isolation—I am not being political, I am just mentioning—
Lord Campbell-Savours: My Lords, it is hard to explain. I am isolating a group of Members of this House who seem to be flagging up what people outside have erected as the central areas for consideration in the debate, but which in my view are not the central areas. The argument about 60/80 will be dealt with by the climate change committee. The argument over aviation will be dealt with in 2012 under the European arrangements, and it will obviously be dealt with in the climate change committee. The noble Lord is defusing the need for the committee to feel that it has responsibility for these important areas. I appeal to the noble Lord, even at this late stage of the Bill, to perhaps reconsider the whole strategy that the Liberal Democrats are adopting in these debates.
Lord Redesdale: My Lords, is the noble Lord saying that we should not debate this in Parliament or raise these issues but that we should leave them to a committee and just take on board its views? Surely the purpose of this debate is to question that. I do not want to be political about this in any way, shape or form, but we on these Benches think that that is the case.
Lord Campbell-Savours: My Lords, it is not that the issues should not be debated; of course they should be debated. But we saw the other day that the noble Lord’s Benches are prepared to divide on these issues, which means that they do not only want the debate, they want enshrined in the Bill these targets, which some of us really believe are the function and responsibility of the committee.
4 Mar 2008 : Column 1006
The Earl of Selborne: My Lords—
Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way, because I wanted to respond to that point. The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, will appreciate that when my noble friend Lord Teverson and I sat on the Joint Committee on the Draft Climate Change Bill and heard all the evidence, we did not do so as Liberal Democrats but as members of that committee. Although we are now here on these Benches in a political form, all the evidence that we heard on the target that he has mentioned, with which we have already dealt, was that it should be 80 per cent. When we heard evidence on, for example, aviation, one of the things that most surprised me was how open the aviation industry was to some of these things.
Far from being political, we are reacting to the evidence that we heard. Apart from that, I would fully concur with my noble friend that these issues are parliamentary and we really cannot shrug our shoulders and say that we are not going to decide on any of them and will leave it all to the climate change committee, whose creation I, too, thoroughly support.
4.45 pm
Lord Campbell-Savours: My Lords, the distinction between the position taken by the noble Baroness and myself and, perhaps, my noble friends, is that when decisions are taken on these issues, I believe that they should come out in the words and phrases used by the scientists, not the politicians. In 20 years’ time, I do not want someone on television saying, “Well, I’m sorry, we were not interested in that recommendation; it was just a decision taken by Parliament—a bunch of amateurs”. I want people in 20 years’ time to say, “We have to accept decisions taken 20 years ago in the climate change committee, because they were based on science”. In my view the committee should take the decisions, but the Bill currently refers to advice. “They were based on advice taken as a result of scientific work and research done by the Committee on Climate Change”. The noble Baroness wants politicians to take the decisions; I want the scientists to recommend or, indeed, decide. That is the distinction.
The Earl of Selborne: My Lords, there is only one acid test as to whether or not the amendment is appropriate: is it going to make international aviation accountable? Will it make the EU Emissions Trading Scheme happen quicker, or will it make it more complicated to achieve? I do not think that anyone doubts—the aviation industry recognises this—that international air travel has to be brought into account. However, as the Minister reminded us in Committee, it is not helpful to have unilateral action, which in some ways confuses the issue and does not in any way help us to quantify the amount that has to be attributed in the UK account to international air travel.
The issue that ultimately has to be addressed is how to change people’s personal lifestyles. Most of those who travel internationally, particularly on long haul, have to recognise that perhaps 25 per cent of
4 Mar 2008 : Column 1007
Lord Taylor of Holbeach: My Lords, if it will be of some comfort to the Liberal Democrats, we, too, believe that the emissions referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, on behalf of the Liberal Democrats, must be included somehow. We have no qualms about the intention underlying the Liberal Democrat amendments. However, on reflection, there may be a better way of going about it. Thus, we will speak on our way of addressing the problem—placing a duty to regulate, based on international trade and transport—in the next group of amendments.
Lord Rooker: My Lords, I realise that we will cover some similar material when we come to debate the next group of amendments. Therefore, I shall not prejudge Amendment No. 65. Indeed, if Amendment No. 64 is carried, we will not have the opportunity to debate Amendment No. 65. Nevertheless, there are issues that are covered by both groups. One of our best debates in Committee was on this issue. It lasted for a couple of hours. It was probably the longest debate we had on any of these issues. My noble friend Lord Bassam of Brighton, as the transport spokesman in this House, arranged a subsequent meeting so that noble Lords could discuss the issue. That turned out to be useful.
The Government agree completely that these are important issues—no one is arguing otherwise—and it is essential that the right decisions are taken based on a proper analysis and the best evidence base. That is why, in response to our previous debate, the Government have now brought forward Amendments Nos. 118 to 120, which would give both Parliament and the Committee on Climate Change a greater role in decisions.
I recognise that this group of amendments treats international aviation and shipping emissions differently, as the noble Lord said. I agree that the question of shipping emissions is particularly complex, and it is therefore very likely that we will need to approach international aviation and shipping differently under the Bill. However, I reassure your Lordships that the Bill as it stands does just that. It allows us, if necessary, to include either international aviation or international shipping emissions in our targets ahead of the other.
I shall take the issue of international aviation first. As I set out in Committee, the Government’s view is that the best way to deal with international aviation
4 Mar 2008 : Column 1008
Although the details are not yet finalised, including aviation within the EU Emissions Trading Scheme will mean that aviation emissions from 2012 are capped, that this cap is set at the average of 2004-06 levels, and that any growth in emissions above this cap all the way to 2020 will need to be compensated by emission reductions elsewhere within the EU Emissions Trading Scheme. The current proposal is that this will apply not just to all flights between the 27 member states but also to all flights which arrive in or leave the EU. On that basis, the scheme will save 183 million tonnes of carbon dioxide—roughly equivalent to the CO2 emissions for the Netherlands in 2004. This is a significant step forward, and I am sure that noble Lords agree that whatever we do under the Bill has to be consistent with the wider European and international framework.
As I think has been recognised during our previous debates on these issues, there are real practical difficulties here. That is why we think that we need expert advice from the independent Committee on Climate Change before we take decisions. I do not want to be overly critical of the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, but when he introduced the amendment I did not hear him mention the mechanism for addressing these practical difficulties.
| Next Section | Back to Table of Contents | Lords Hansard Home Page |