I welcome Mr. Mike Childs, Friends of the Earth (UK) and Ms Nina Mackenzie, British Embassy.
Legislative Framework for Climate Change: Discussion.
Ms Nina Mackenzie
I thank the Chairman and the committee for the invitation to attend. Unfortunately, Mr. Nigel Griffiths, MP, is unable to attend because of parliamentary business at Westminster. It is a real shame because he played an active role from the Westminster backbenches in bringing forward the UK's legislation on climate change. The ambassador, Mr. David Reddaway, asked me to convey his apologies for not being able to attend today's meeting. He also attaches great importance to climate change.
I will provide the committee with a brief overview of the UK's legislation on climate change, its progress since its publication and an update on current UK thinking as we approach the Copenhagen summit later this year.
In 2005 the UK's thinking on climate change began to take a different shape. The then Chancellor of the Exchequer commissioned a report by Sir Nicholas Stern. The Stern review, with which the committee will be familiar, was published in November 2006. For the first time, this report set out the economic case for action on climate change and concluded the cost of inaction would be far greater than the cost of taking action now. Stern said that governments, businesses and individuals all need to work together to respond to the challenge and strong deliberate policy choices by governments are essential to motivate change.
The UK Government agreed with Stern and defined its commitment to addressing both the causes and consequences of climate change with new legislation. Work on this legislation began in late 2006 with an extensive public consultation. The Bill was introduced into Parliament the following year and passed into law in November 2008. The 2008 energy and planning Acts helped to ensure UK legislation underpinned our long-term delivery of the UK's energy and climate strategy.
The Climate Change Act created a new approach to managing and responding to climate change by the UK Government. It set ambitious targets, enabled powers to help achieve them, strengthened institutional frameworks and enhanced the UK's ability to adapt to the impact of climate change. It also established clear and regular accountability to Westminster and devolved administrations.
Two key aims which underpin the Act are to improve carbon management and help the transition to a low-carbon economy in the UK; and to demonstrate strong UK leadership internationally, signalling that the UK is committed to taking its share of responsibility for reducing global emissions in the context of negotiations on a post-2012 climate change agreement. Some of the Act's key provisions include legally binding targets for the UK, a carbon budgeting system and the creation of a committee on climate change. Further provisions include the requirement for the UK Government to issue guidance on the way companies should report their greenhouse emissions. It instructed a new requirement for the publication of an annual report on the efficiency and sustainability of the UK Government's estate. The full text of the Act, as well as a report on the impact assessment of the legislation published in March 2009, is available on the CDs I have sent to the committee and on-line.
One key milestone achieved by the legislation has been the establishment of the Committee on Climate Change at Westminster at the end of 2008. Advice from the committee has fed into another important milestone, Britain's first carbon budget, delivered in April 2009. In delivering that budget, the Chancellor of the Exchequer said green technology would be one of the great growth sectors in the world economy. He also said Britain's economic recovery must be sustainable and protect the environment. He committed Britain to cut carbon emissions by 34% by 2020 and announced funding to deliver energy efficiency measures for homes, businesses and public buildings, along with new financial support for offshore wind projects.
Realistically, we know that coal, oil and gas will continue to be major energy sources for the UK for the foreseeable future. As such, the first carbon budget contained a new funding mechanism for clean technologies, including carbon capture and storage demonstration projects.
The Climate Change Act sets targets for greenhouse gas emission reductions in the UK and overseas of 80% by 2050. Later this summer, the UK Government will publish a White Paper setting out its strategy to meet this target. However, the Committee on Climate Change has already called on our UK agricultural sector to cut its emissions. This sector accounts for 7% of the UK's total emissions. I am aware that agriculture is at the heart of the climate change debate in Ireland.
As managers of the land, farmers look after the billions of tonnes of carbon stored in our soil. What they do is vitally important in helping all of us to adapt to climate change. UK farmers know there is a challenge and an opportunity for their sector to find new ways to cut emissions, develop new sustainable farming techniques and to increase production by investing in the future. The UK's farming future survey showed over half of UK farmers believe they are already affected by climate change, 50% of them believe it presents a risk to their business and a third of them are taking action to adapt now. The UK Government has pledged to help agriculture meet the challenge. While farming cannot be zero-carbon, it can be low-carbon without affecting production levels.
Last weekend, the UK Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Ed Miliband, said there is no more difficult challenge in politics at the moment than getting an ambitious agreement in Copenhagen. In the lead-up to the summit, UK Ministers are asking whether politics can rise to the challenge of the science. There is, expectedly, a fairly mixed response. On the one hand, politicians around the world are beginning to rise to the challenge. At the same time we can also see the compelling constraints affecting different governments such as China. China produces more emissions than any other country in the world, but we also need to think about the 500 million people living in China on less than one euro a day, which the Chinese Government wants to lift out of poverty through sustained levels of economic growth.
The Copenhagen round is not just a question of managerialism around targets, finance and technology. The fundamental issue is one of equality, fairness and morality. Alongside the appeal to values we need a message of prosperity, not austerity and we do not believe we should be embarrassed about appealing to economics. Over the last 50 years economic growth has dramatically improved the living standards of many people and while they are prepared to be party to action on climate change, they also want to know they can continue to have a similar standard of living and that costs of taking action will be fairly spread. As the UK sees it, the goal is for low carbon growth.
The UK believes we have to make the argument for a global deal consistent with the science. We all know the argument that developed countries are responsible for the situation we are in and that per capita emissions are still significantly higher in developed than developing countries. However, if we look at future projections, it seems likely that around 75% of the expected increase in global emissions over the next two decades will come from developing countries, with China responsible for about half that increase. The UK believes the way forward is for developing countries to accept their responsibility to take the lead, with cuts in emissions — not just with goals for 2050 but with tough and ambitious interim targets.
The path to low carbon growth might look like the harder choice, especially for developing countries. Developed countries need to build a bridge, with action on finance and technology and then we need to welcome our developing neighbours across it onto the path of low carbon. This is why action on carbon capture on storage in coal is so important. It is not just about UK emissions, but about pushing forward the technology as quickly as we can.
The UK believes we need to provide the right type of inclusive campaign in the lead up to Copenhagen. If we look at the great advances of the past, those against slavery, freedom against racial discrimination and for rights of representation in parliaments and at work, all of those steps required action by governments but none could have happened without progressive forces in society. Popular pressure makes change happen and the UK does not believe that reaching a global idyll at Copenhagen can just be left to governments. We know that people are interested in climate change and that they care. There is popular pressure, thanks to organisations such as Friends of the Earth, but we are not sure precisely how many people know that 2009 is what the UK Government is calling the make or break moment for our planet.
The UK Government will be launching its case for an ambitious deal on climate change in the coming weeks. This will outline the principles on which opposition is based, the specific areas where we want to see agreement and details of what the UK is already doing, domestically.
I thank Ms Mackenzie. I shall now ask Mr. Childs to make a presentation and then we shall open the session to questions.
Mr. Mike Childs
It is a pleasure and an honour to be asked to address the committee. I shall first talk about the journey that led to the Climate Change Act in the UK, as well as referring to some of the benefits. We do not see it as a perfect law but we believe it is a substantial step forward in terms of the fight against climate change. We are proud of the part we played in delivering it and we are proud that it is in place.
The Climate Change Act was dreamt up by Friends of the Earth, which launched the public campaign in the middle of 2005. The reasons we identified the need for climate change law arose because as environmentalists who had been committed to take action on climate change for decades we knew there were real interdepartmental difficulties at Government level in terms of delivering carbon reductions. We could see, for example, that although the Department of the Environment was full of committed people anxious to take action as regards climate change, it was almost a lone voice within government in this regard and certainly was not the biggest hitter when it came to discussions around the Cabinet table. Therefore we saw the need to bring forward legislation that would tie in all Departments within Government to the common cause of trying to fight climate change. That is how the Climate Change Act campaign began.
The journey has been a long one and along the way we have been joined by many allies, very surprisingly, in some cases. When we launched the campaign we knew there were good arguments for having a climate change Act. The science of climate change, of course, has been well understood for a number of years. Prime Minister Tony Blair put climate change on top of the G8 agenda for 2004. He said this was an issue of enormous importance that would impact, not just on the lives of his grandchildren, but would also impact on his life and that of his children. Therefore it was already on the political agenda thanks to Prime Minister Blair, so we knew we needed an Act to help move forward on that agenda and try to deliver some serious reductions in carbon emissions.
During the journey of delivering the Act, we worked with many people. We worked with all parties across the political spectrum. This is always important on these issues because climate change, as we know, is not something that will be solved within one parliamentary term and needs the commitment of political parties now and in the future if it is to be addressed. Therefore it was very important when we drafted the legislation and talked to Members of Parliament across the political spectrum that we understood what their concerns were so that we could come up with a Bill that everyone could buy into. We worked on a cross-party basis in terms of drafting some initial legislation and the campaign was launched by a cross-party group of MPs. That was an important part of the beginning of the journey.
As the campaign went forward we knew that for a climate change Act to be delivered in practice, we needed to ensure the public were engaged with and considering the issue and buying into the need to take action on climate change. With out network of local groups across the country we launched a campaign for a climate change Act and MPs within their constituencies built bridges with other groups, such as local church groups, business and trade unions, to try and get a groundswell of support for such an Act. That was a very powerful groundswell which in the end resulted in a strong climate change Act.
As we went forward there were key moments in the journey that are worth pointing out. One of these was when Prime Minister Tony Blair and then Chancellor Gordon Brown had a meeting with business leaders, who told the Prime Minister and the Chancellor that they wanted regulation in this area. These businesses were not small renewable industries but rather reflected the views of major concerns across the UK, such as Tesco, Shell, Vodafone and BT. These were substantial UK businesses who told Mr. Blair and Mr. Brown that legislation was needed in this area because they wanted to be assured, if they invested in low carbon technologies and fuels, that this would not be undone at the next general election or the one after that. They needed to know that the investments they put in place, regardless of whether the payback periods took ten or even 20 years, were nonetheless secure and would eventually pay dividends. They did not want to find themselves being thrown about by the whims of changing political fortunes at a national level.
Prime Minister Blair said at the Labour Party conference speech following that meeting that he was now convinced of the need for regulation within this area. That was the beginning of the Climate Change Act campaign moving from an NGO-led initiative to something that the British Government bought into wholeheartedly and wanted to deliver — because it had business support and the logic of climate science behind, as well as the personal commitment of the Prime Minister and the Chancellor. From that time onwards, the detail and the campaign moved towards shaping precisely what the climate change Act would contain, how we could deliver it and how it would be delivered in practice. Our campaign focused less on whether there should be a climate change Act than what it should contain.
When the Climate Change Act was drafted, we were very clear that what was required from a scientific perspective was not just to set long-term ambitious targets, but rather to have year-on-year reductions in emissions. What was necessary from a scientific perspective was not just to set long-term ambitious targets, but to have year-on-year reductions in emissions, because it is the total amount of CO2 and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere that matter, not some dates for emissions reduction like 2050. We were very clear that we needed to have a system that managed our carbon on a year to year basis, or at least a five-yearly basis. From the logic of that position and from the discussions that we had with the team in the British Government that are drafting the Bill with backbench MPs and Ministers, we got the idea of having five-year carbon budgets. This outlined the total quantity of carbon that could be emitted by the UK in five-year periods. That was one important part of our campaign.
The second part of our campaign was the aspiration about how much we should reduce carbon emissions. We are proud in the UK that we saw the birth of the industrial revolution, but with that pride comes some sense of responsibility that we have emitted a large amount of the carbon in the atmosphere. We need to do more than many other countries to reduce our emissions. Friends of the Earth were clear that we needed to get reductions by 2050 in the order of 80%. That is what the science was saying as well. We were saying that we need a milestone at 2020 and a milestone at 2050 in reducing our carbon emissions, with five-year budgets along that period.
The third part of our campaign was the need to include all the emissions for which the UK was responsible as best we could, recognising that this is not an easy thing to do. We were clear that emissions from our contribution to international aviation should be included. In the end, they were included within the Act. We ended up with an Act that is strong. I personally feel proud of it, having lead the campaign for all those years, but the UK Government is also incredibly proud of it. I know that at international negotiations, the UK Government is proud when it calls for international effort on climate change, because it can show it is really committed to it back home. It has put in place a climate change Act which shows that it means business at home as well. That has been important for the UK Government, because it can rightly take pride for putting climate change on the international stage, but it always had a weakness as the UK delivery on carbon emissions was not as great as it should have been. In fact, it was poor in many areas. This new Act changes that. It states that not only are we committed to trying to get a global deal on climate change, which is critically important, but we are also committed to decarbonising the UK and moving towards a low carbon economy. We have ended up with an Act of which Friends of the Earth is proud, as is the UK Government as well.
I would like to talk about some of the reasons this law is universally popular. Industry is very much behind the Climate Change Act. Industry representatives met Prime Minister Tony Blair and Chancellor Gordon Brown to tell them they wanted the Act. They have been championing it ever since and have stated that the Act enables them to carry out some long-term investment and planning, which is exactly what we need. The Confederation of British Industry has been very supportive of it. It also gives the UK an opportunity to be at the forefront of developing low carbon technologies. It makes it a safe place to invest in those technologies and bring forward the industries of the future, which is critically important for the sustainable economy of the UK.
The Act is also very popular with the public in the UK. The public in the UK have witnessed some severe weather events over the last four or five years, as have other countries, and they are more convinced than ever before that climate change is happening and that we need to do something about it. They can see that the Government needs to do something about it. It gives them a sense of pride but also some trust, in that not only does the existing Government support action on climate change, but so do the other political parties. That is clearly true when one looks at the voting record for the Climate Change Act. When the Bill on climate change passed through the British Parliament, there was no three line Whip, which is a Whip to make sure that MPs voted for it, but over 450 MPs across the political spectrum turned out to vote for the Bill, including David Cameron, the leader of the Conservative Party. It got widespread political support, which means that the public can see that all parties are serious about climate change. It binds future UK Governments into taking that action, not just because there is a law on climate change, but because all parties were part of the development, the inspiration and the inception of the Act. The public are very proud of the Climate Change Act, and they can see that their Government is doing something about this critical issue.
The Climate Change Act is also a great success because of the rigour it brings to the Government. The Government is now producing strategies for how it will deliver the first climate change carbon budget. These are five-year budgets that deal with the total amount of carbon produced. That means that in the Cabinet, the Secretary of State for Transport, the Secretary of State for Energy, the Secretary for Agriculture all need to sit down and argue what slice of the pie they receive. It brings carbon management to places in government where there was no carbon management before. For example, the Department of Transport had a very poor record in looking at how it will manage carbon. It was not particularly on its agenda, but now it is firmly on its agenda and the Climate Change Act has already had a significant impact on the thinking within that Department. We have already seen initiatives to accelerate the development of electric cars. Therefore, we have already seen some good impacts of the Act already, even though it is a very new Act. Friends of the Earth believes that climate change is as important an issue to manage as the economy, and I think the UK Government now believes this as well. It is absolutely right to manage the economy and money closely, but we ought to be managing carbon in the same way. The Climate Change Act institutionalises that.
The Act is also important to the future economic well-being of the UK. Ms Mackenzie mentioned that one of the reasons the Climate Change Act came about was the Stern review. This was a really important review, which stated that it makes more sense to spend money on climate change now than to deal with the consequences later. The UK Government recognises that dealing with climate change is critical for our economic well-being. The Act also deals with other challenges as well. Members know that the UK reserves of oil and gas are depleting fast. Energy security is a rising issue for many countries, including the UK. Dealing with carbon actually means dealing with energy as well, and it helps in developing energy security. It is a very good thing as it drives towards a low-carbon, non-fossil fuel based economy.
The committee on climate change was also very important. When Friends of the Earth drafted the Bill on climate change, we did not insert a provision on the setting up of a committee on climate change into the draft Bill. That idea was brought forward by the Opposition and the UK Government itself. The committee on climate change has been incredibly important and incredibly powerful. It is well staffed and has some great brains around the table, both from a science perspective and an economics perspective, both of which are critical. This committee makes recommendations to the UK Government on the size of the carbon budgets, how much of those budgets they should deliver back home and how much they should offset, and the types of policy changes that should be introduced to deliver and live within those budgets. For example, they have recommended that the UK needs to decarbonise completely its electricity generation by around 2025, and that there should be a big shift towards electric vehicles. These ideas make good sense and it is good that the committee brought forward that thinking. It is full of very intelligent, very well respected and very powerful people, and their voices matter. All the political parties are looking to them for advice and giving weight to that advice. That is important for both the short and the long term.
For the UK at least, I can say that the Climate Change Act is a great piece of legislation. It is not perfect and I do not pretend that to be the case. We will look to build on it and improve it. However, it is a very good thing both for climate change and for our economy.
I thank both Ms Mackenzie and Mr. Childs for their contributions. As members know, we have asked Deputy McManus to act as rapporteur to report on the proposal for a climate change Bill. Our guests are in attendance as a result of a forum that she will hold later this evening. We thank her for her help and assistance in this regard. I open the floor to her to begin her contribution.
I thank the Chairman and acknowledge his facilitation of this meeting, for which I am grateful. I am also grateful for the attendance of our guests. We started out with two different speakers. Unfortunately, it turned out at the last minute that neither was available. Every member is grateful for the attendance of two such distinguished and knowledgeable speakers on the issue of climate change law. My opinion and that of my party is simple — it is not a question of whether we should have a law, but of how and when to do it. It seems clear that there must be a cross-party approach and that the community at large must be involved in some way if the law is to work. Our guests might elaborate on this point.
A couple of points raised by our guests were interesting. The impact of the law is such that, no matter who is in government, the job must be done and the targets must be met. There is no avoiding this requirement. The next election is not relevant, as one must work within the framework. This important provision would create certainty for Government, business and stakeholders. According to our guests, the industry sought such certainty, which is interesting. Normally, one would expect resistance and statements to the effect that, while discussing climate change was all very nice, people must make a living, which is more difficult to do in recessionary times. Will our guests comment in this regard? If there was resistance, how was it overcome?
Mr. Childs stated that it is not a perfect Bill. Perhaps it would be unfair to ask him why it is not perfect. The Bill produced by the Labour Party is based on the British law, for which I make no apologies. There are ways to ensure that we produce the best legislation possible. The Taoiseach should be responsible. Given the way in which our Parliament works, the Taoiseach is accessible in terms of questions being asked of him. This twice-weekly scrutiny provides an important method of ensuring that matters are delivered upon. Our guests might comment in this regard, as they might have a different approach.
I would be grateful were they to explain about the Committee on Climate Change. Our Oireachtas committee on climate change comprises Members of the Dáil and the Seanad. Our Chairman has been effective in ensuring that we do our work. We have produced a number of important reports, although whether they have been taken on board is another issue. The UK's committee is different from ours.
Our guests referred to the cross-party nature of the support. Does that mean that the UK's Bill arose from a different mechanism? In our Parliament, the Government proposes legislation and it is dealt with in the Dáil and the Seanad. It seems that, if we want to produce the best possible legislation, we need to adopt a different approach and be more inclusive in terms of how the process goes from phase to phase.
It was also mentioned that a benefit of the legislation was that all Departments must work together. If anything can be learned from our deliberations of recent years, it is that Departments do not work together. It is a frustrating experience. Will our guests comment in this regard?
Will the British Prime Minister attend at Copenhagen? I hope the Taoiseach will undertake to represent our delegation, as this would send an important message. I do not know what Britain will be doing.
Ms Mackenzie discussed China and the developing world, which present a considerable challenge. Does she wish to make a further comment beyond stating that we must take an additional load because we caused much of the problem? It would be helpful were she to refer to other possible measures.
We can and will have climate change legislation. It is inevitable. We must put a real price on carbon and use it to lighten the burden of taxes elsewhere, such as on labour.
I have three main questions. Will the delegation clarify what penalties will arise if the UK Government fails to meet the targets? My second question is on individual ministerial responses. We could allocate carbon emissions by sector. Whether we are from Britain or Ireland, we are all familiar with the relevant pie charts. However, making the transfer between the pie chart and the line Minister's responsibilities can be difficult. They do not mesh seamlessly. How did the UK legislation address this conundrum? In the traded sector, many emissions are not under the direct control of a Minister. I am sure the UK has an equivalent of our Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources. The energy sector accounts for the bulk of emissions in the traded sector. How is this issue dealt with in the UK?
For the past two years, we have had an embryonic carbon budget. Without legislation being in place, it is not as rigorous as the UK's, but the time is ripe for strong climate change legislation. It would concentrate minds and would be welcome.
It would seem appropriate for Ireland's Environmental Protection Agency to be the independent arbiter in respect of carbon emissions. We should enshrine in each Department a competence to measure carbon. One of the issues we have encountered to date can be found within, for example, the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food where one senses that there might not be 100% commitment to either measuring carbon or taking a strong sense of responsibility for emissions. I would welcome our guests' thoughts on these matters and I thank them for taking the time to travel to this meeting.
Ms Nina Mackenzie
I may need to hand over much of this to Mr. Childs, who has a greater expertise in this field. From my experience as a Foreign Office official working overseas and considering the UK's debate in 2005 from the point of view of community involvement, it was clear that much of the issue was driven by business. Its understanding was far greater than the officials' understanding. The Confederation of Business Industry, CBI, which is IBEC's equivalent, sent information to our overseas embassies, which stated that it wanted legislation in the UK and asked what the embassies' host governments were doing. There was a clear push from business, communities, NGOs and advocacy groups. That was a different way to approach legislation in the UK at that time. As Mr. Childs said, the result was that we had cross-party consensus, which led to a majority vote when this passed into law. All Departments are tasked to work together to deliver the climate change goals of the UK, whether in the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office or the Department for Transport. As technology brings us closer together, it brings different Governments together. Different domestic departments may take the lead with governments overseas.
I do not know if the Prime Minister will attend Copenhagen but I expect we will have a clearer indication as we launch our Copenhagen manifesto later this week and early next week.
We recognise that there are less developing countries and a sliding scale must be addressed in how we face the climate change challenge with those countries.
Mr. Mike Childs
I cannot resist saying that Ms Mackenzie's comments on whether Mr. Gordon Brown will attend the Copenhagen meeting sound like a "Yes". We will wait and hear the news. If he goes, it will be very good news.
This was cross-party legislation. A draft Bill was supported by a broad section of NGOs. Friends of the Earth initiated the campaign but it was supported by development groups, trade unions and other groups. The Government committed to it and Mr. David Miliband, now Secretary of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office but who was then in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, instructed his officials to draft it. They worked from some of the ideas developed during the gestation of the legislation. It was built on all those ideas and discussions, so the Department was not working from a blank piece of paper. It is critical that this legislation has cross-party support. All parties must believe in this as it progresses.
This leads me to the question on penalties and what will happen if a future Government does not deliver on this. In the UK we can go to court and undertake judicial review proceedings of Government decisions if it decides not to deliver on carbon budgets set. That is a high legal hurdle and we would have preferred more penalties in the Act. In practice, it will not come to that because of the cross-party support from all political leaders at the beginning. Future Governments will be reluctant to move away from the legislation. Given the way climate science is moving, the incentive to take action on climate change will increase rather than decrease. This puts us on the right path but the Climate Change Act 2008 will be overtaken by climate science and climate impact. There will be other motivating factors beyond the Climate Change Act 2008.
The statistics department is responsible for monitoring and measuring emissions. We must report to the UN on our carbon emissions as part of our Kyoto obligations. One of the important measures to emerge from the Climate Change Act 2008 is that all departments must estimate the carbon emissions of policies as well as consider the economic pros and cons of policies. This brings thinking about carbon into areas of Government where it has not been before. This is a significant step forward.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer sets the carbon budget and will report on it. This is a big hitter in the Government and will have the responsibility for telling the UK Parliament that the UK has achieved its carbon budget, hopefully, rather than reporting that it has failed. It is important to have a big hitter in that position. The Prime Minister in the UK and the Taoiseach in Ireland would be ideal.
Regarding the approach of industry to the Act, when Friends of the Earth brought forward the Act we had an important discussion internally on whether the Act should identify the pathway or include the measures needed to deliver the carbon reduction. We decided it was much more important to get the framework right rather than the policies to implement the framework. For that reason, the industry did not say that it did not agree. Industry could see that climate change was important. Industries had read the Stern report and saw that it was economically important and supported the Act. If we had included measures on how to deliver carbon budgets within the Act it would have created opposition from some quarters as any policy does. There are always winners and losers but because this was a framework item of legislation it did not create that situation. It is very important that parliaments work at the framework level and not try to bundle too many other matters in with it. The more one does so, the greater the opportunity for political parties not to buy into it. That creates challenges in ensuring the measures are sustained over a longer period of time. If I brought any recommendation to a climate change Act that the Oireachtas might produce, this is the most significant. One should make sure to get cross-party approval and not try to create too much division within it.
The European trading scheme complicates matters. The UK Government has dealt with this in the Climate Change Act by tying industrial emissions to the pollution permits granted under the European trading sector. To illustrate, if the UK is given 100 pollution permits in the national allocation plan under the emissions trading scheme for five years hence, the Climate Change Act would recognise that as being the level of releases. The industry may have released more and had to buy permits from overseas and may produce less. In either case it is tied to the emissions trading allowance. That gets more difficult in time as we move from the national allocation plans to the Commission setting the whole budget and dealing with pollution permit apportionment.
Ms Mackenzie is correct in referring to China as a big emitter that must do more on climate change. She also pointed out that there are 500 million people living in abject poverty without electricity. It is a big country. That does not make it a devil; in the same way, Ireland's emissions are greater than the Isle of Man but is not necessarily worse in terms of climate change. China must move forward on climate change. It is great the UK Government is working with China, as I am sure the Irish Government is, to help it to do so. Countries will not move unless they see firm commitment from developed countries. From the perspective of the UK, the Climate Change Act is a strong tool that says we mean business. This is not just hot air from rich countries, we really mean business and have a law in place. The more developed countries with that law in place, the more we can tell India and China that we are taking action on climate change and the more those developing countries will move forward.
I refer to the sector emissions and Departments working together. During the Climate Change Act debate, whether sector emissions should be set in the Act was discussed. This could detail the allocation for transport, energy and agriculture. It is not an area Friends of the Earth concentrated on because we could not battle on all fronts. The decision was made not to have the sectoral emissions defined within the law. There are strong advantages to that because governments must make choices as times move on, such as whether to allow more emissions to the transport sector and therefore squeeze the amount of carbon that homes can release. All of these decisions will need to be made in time and as technology develops. These battles are going on behind closed doors in Whitehall in the UK to figure out how much transport, housing and agriculture gets and that is right because it is not an easy matter on which to come to a conclusion and fix in law because it will change as technology changes and as experience moves forward.
With regard to the areas of the UK Climate Change Act 2008 which are not as strong as we would like, we are immensely proud of the Act and I ask the committee not to take what we say out of context. While they are not minor quibbles I do not want to take away from the importance of the Act and the impact it is having. The Act did not set a target for 2020; it referred to the committee on climate change which I will discuss later. The Committee on Climate Change made a recommendation to the Government stating that following the EU approach, there is an interim target of 34% emissions reductions by 2020 but an intended target of 42% by 2020.
I am intrigued by the 34% target because we have been working on the basis of a 30% target.
Mr. Mike Childs
It is 34%.
Is that the EU target?
Mr. Mike Childs
No, it applies to the UK. The EU budget gets portioned out differently to various countries and the UK would be expected to take a greater share of that. Our interim target is 34% while the EU's interim target is 20%.
Our argument was and remains that to show real leadership on climate change one does not state that one will jump if everyone else jumps, one jumps and states that everyone else should follow. We argue that the Government should have gone for a carbon budget that reduced emissions by 42% by 2020 and not gone for an interim measure. I hope we are proved wrong and that everyone does jump but I think that if we had jumped others would have felt more pressure to jump with us.
Another weakness was that the role of local authorities was not fully considered in the debate on the UK Climate Change Act. No targets have been set for local authorities. In the UK, and I am sure it is the same in Ireland, local authorities have a key role in tackling climate change. They have planning powers and they own a large amount of buildings, whether it is social housing or their own buildings. There is much they can and should do on climate change. The UK Act does not require local authorities to deliver at that level. Interestingly, the Scottish Government has produced its own Bill, which will be debated and voted on today, and that Bill states that the targets will also be binding on local authorities. It has taken the UK Act, built on it and improved it. We could not get it perfect the first time round and I am sure others can improve on it.
The final area in which we have a problem with the Act is the issue of offsetting and how much of the emissions reduction we make at home in the UK and how much by buying offset credits from overseas. The perspective of Friends of the Earth UK is that we should deliver all of the reductions at home, or at least the vast majority of them. There was a very lively debate in the House of Lords and the House of Commons about this issue and the Government stated it would refer the matter to the Committee on Climate Change which would provide advice. The committee effectively stated that offsetting can be used but it should not be overused. The reason it should not be overused is because the overuse of offsetting delays the changes needed at home in one's own economy. A firm commitment was made that the electricity sector in the UK should be decarbonised by the mid-2020s. If we offset far too many of our emissions this will not happen. The committee is very keen that offsetting is minimised.
Friends of the Earth UK has produced research on offsetting which states that it does not work fantastically in terms of reducing emissions and that some of the offsetting schemes increase emissions. Even putting the fact that it does not work properly to one side, there is a very strong reason to state that under the Act there will be a limit on the amount of offsetting that can be used. There is clarity for industry in this country with regard to how much will be done at home and overseas.
The Committee on Climate Change is not a political committee; it does not have elected representatives from the political parties on it. It is an expert committee and its life is meant to extend for the whole delivery of the UK Climate Change Act in the next 40 years. We also have parliamentary committees which will examine what the Committee on Climate Change is doing and saying so there will be some backbench political oversight of the work of the committee and how the Government is responding to it.
It was important to ensure the existence of a committee staffed with people who genuinely had a great deal of experience in economics. Lord Turner, a former chairman of CBI, has that experience as well as business experience. It also has experts on science and social impacts of climate change. This model works extremely well and I am sure that during this committee's deliberations on legislation the Committee on Climate Change would be more than happy to come here and discuss its work, how it carries it out and how it feels it contributes to the delivery of the Act. I am sure Members of Parliament from the UK who are on the environmental audit committee, which is one of the committees which examines the work of the Committee on Climate Change, would also welcome the opportunity to discuss its role in ensuring that the UK Climate Change Act is delivered in practice.
That is a slightly different structure from what we have here as two experts sit on our in-House committee at all times. We could argue that we have a mix of a parliamentary and expert committee. In so far as the UK Climate Change Act is a framework and does not set down specifics is it too aspirational? When it comes to achieving targets and having to get down and dirty and negotiate who will give what, is there enough control in the Act through punishment or penalties to make it obligatory for people to get real and take action to achieve the targets? We could all sign up to it, which is great, but who must achieve what in transport, energy, agriculture and the general environment and how they will achieve it has not been nailed.
Ms Nina Mackenzie
That is a fair comment and it is not the first time it has been said. However, as Mr. Childs stated, the Act was a framework to motivate change, bring people on board and pull together thinking in the UK. The carbon budget is what gives us the guidelines to deliver in the short term and the Act itself is a foundation for the longer term planning on climate change.
I have come around to that way of thinking. Initially, when this committee started its work it considered what penalties to impose on the Government of the day. I have come around to believe that is not the answer to the question. We must make this issue simple for the public. People and industry must come on board, whether it is farming or any other type of industry.
Government must also be on board. We did not have a committee dealing with climate change before this one began a year and a half ago, and its success or failure depends on such a process. We should give credit to the Government because it set up this committee. We are fortunate that, to date, we have behaved on a non-partisan basis, and I hope this will continue, with all parties and Independents represented.
We have produced legislation relating to offshore energy production and its planning aspects. We have presented this to the Government and we have already produced a report on electric cars. Deputy McManus is our rapporteur on proposed legislation in this area. Ultimately, we can do this work, meet with people, listen, encourage and provide a platform to make their case but if the Government does not co-operate with others in Parliament, the process will not work. Some of us have other things to do besides engaging in a talking shop.
This message must go out loud and clear to whomever is in Government. Long after we vacate these chairs there will be another Government in place, but unless we work together, we will not achieve our goal. For example, there is a dispute about Departments as the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources may try to get all our electricity produced by renewables by a certain date but the Department of Transport does not seem to have a policy on anything. The Cabinet sub-committee, headed by the Taoiseach, must put the squeeze on and instruct participants to play their part.
We are asking why the public transport companies are cutting down on their level of public transport despite transport being one of the areas producing many of our carbon emissions. There is no point in us telling the electorate to use public transport, minimise use of private cars and reduce the size of engines if they will tell us that we do not have proper public transport.
This issue can only be dealt with by a combination of factors, most important of which is an all-party approach, so that the process can continue irrespective of who is in Government. Most parties have bought into the idea that this is a real problem and the cynics can continue to be cynical. Science has produced all the necessary facts.
If the Act is achieving its goal, we should all have an equivalent. Is it forcing governments to co-operate and work more closely together to tackle the issue in unison with everybody playing their part? If there was an outbreak of some worldwide disease, such as swine flu, we can see the effort that goes into trying to get everybody to work together. Representatives of different countries and the EU would have meetings, for example. This is a similar problem, as in ten or 15 years there will be different types of farming in parts of this country because of the way climate is changing. That is a selfish point and leaves aside the damage to the Earth.
These are facts and we are trying to get that message across. I hope the problem will get the publicity it deserves and make people more aware of it. I also hope the younger generation, through schooling and so on, will have a greater awareness of the issue.
I concur with the views expressed about the benefit of legislation and I do not see penalties as an issue. Once we force people into acting, reporting and tackling the job, the issue will become so important to the public that it will force people to vote in a different direction when we have an election. I appreciate the comments and contribution from the delegation today, as it makes us more aware of the issue. I hope that as a result of the witnesses' offer, we will meet with the climate change committee, which is different from our set-up, when Deputy McManus has had the opportunity to produce our report.
I hope we in turn will be able to produce the heads of a Bill to the Government on an all-party basis. I accept the process must be dealt with in that way. I would like a better response on what we have got to date from the efforts we have made in trying to encourage the Government to listen to what we are saying. I am afraid to have to report the lack of co-operation to date, which is becoming a little obvious at this stage. For that reason we will continue on that line.
I would hate to let the moment pass without pointing out two issues, the first of which regards electric transportation. The Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources has signed agreements with car manufacturers on ways forward in promoting electric vehicles within the State. It is important to put this on the record as it is a significant initiative on behalf of the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan. The second matter is that a major body of planning legislation is under preparation currently which will include, among other things, a significant reform of legislation regarding foreshore licensing. That will dramatically simplify and update the law permitting renewable energy sources to be placed off the coast of Ireland.
It is important to put on record that those two initiatives are proceeding. Both line Ministers have acknowledged the important work this committee is engaged in.
I am glad to hear there is some movement on the legislation dealing with offshore installations. Although I appreciate the Deputy reporting it, the news has not officially made it to us. It is important that as an all-party committee, we are dealt with as such. This is instead of a member of a particular party taking it upon himself or herself to report back to us. I do not want to be partisan but this is a structural process which is about building confidence in co-operation. That is what happened in the UK in its efforts to produce this legislation; it arrived because of co-operation between everybody. That is essential.
If there are no more questions I thank the witnesses sincerely for attending the meeting. I hope that the next time we meet, we will be well advanced in producing legislation that will meet the approval of the delegation.