16 October 2008

With permission, I would like to make a statement on the new Department of Energy and Climate Change.

The new department brings together the government’s work on three long-term challenges that face our country:

1. Ensuring that we have energy that is affordable, secure, and sustainable.
2. Bringing about the transition to a low-carbon Britain.
3. And achieving an international agreement on climate change at Copenhagen in December 2009.

These are our goals, and the new Department is a recognition that when two thirds of our emissions come from the use of energy, energy policy and climate change policy should not be considered separately but together.

Mr Speaker, in tough economic times, some people will ask whether we should retreat from our climate change objectives. In our view, it would be quite wrong to row back and those who say we should misunderstand the relationship between the economic and environmental tasks we face.

Of course, there are trade-offs but there are also common solutions to both: for example, energy-saving measures for households which cut bills and emissions, such as those announced in September by my RHF the Prime Minister. Or investment in new environmental industries which both improve our energy security and reduce our dependence on polluting fuels.

And what we know from the Stern report in 2006 is that the costs of not acting on climate change are greater than the costs of acting. And only if Britain plays its part will a global deal to cut carbon emissions be possible. So, far from retreating from our objectives, we should reaffirm our resolve.

Over the summer, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs asked the independent Committee on Climate Change to review the long-term target for Britain’s emissions.

Based on a Royal Commission report in 2000, the target had been set at a 60 per cent reduction in CO₂ emissions. Since then, independent reports have added further to our knowledge. Arctic sea ice has melted faster than expected. Global emissions have grown faster. And the impacts of each degree of climate change are known to be worse.

Last week, Lord Turner wrote to me with the Committee’s conclusions, and they have been placed in the library of the House. His report found that to hold global warming to 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels, commonly accepted as the threshold for the most dangerous changes in the climate, global emissions must fall by 50-60% by 2050. Lord Turner concluded that for Britain to play its proper part the UK should cut our emissions not by 60% but by 80%.

He concluded that the target should apply not just to CO2, but to all six of the Kyoto greenhouse gasses. And he concluded that while there are uncertainties about how to allocate emissions from international flights and shipping, they too should play their part in reducing emissions.

Mr Speaker, the government accepts all of the recommendations of the Committee on Climate Change. We will amend the Climate Change Bill to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 80 per cent by 2050, and that target will be binding in law.